Experience
by Kenya Starflight
Summary: Part two of the Reborn trilogy. Vader begins to struggle with some of his darker memories as he and Luke train under Yoda. Meanwhile, Boba Fett, now a Sith, stalks the Skywalkers.
1. Default Chapter

Reborn  
  
Part II – Experience  
  
Kenya Starflight  
  
Rated PG for violence  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the middle part of the "Reborn" trilogy that begins with "Innocence." Unless you've read the first story of the trilogy you will probably be lost and confused, although this first chapter does hit the high points of that story.  
  
Chapter 1  
  
The meeting place chosen was a representation of the auditorium in the old Jedi Temple, a spacious room with a vaulted ceiling and the portraits of the greatest of Jedi watching over the occupants from the walls. Thousands of beings of every species, age, gender, and Jedi rank filled the vast chamber, from the youngest of Padawans to the most revered of the Jedi Council, and an excited murmur filled the air as old friends caught up with each other. Embraces and handshakes were exchanged, and the very youngest took advantage of the break before the meeting to play, chase each other around, or giggle over nothing.  
  
Qui-gon Jinn smiled as he took a seat between Master Shaak Ti and an unfamiliar Ithorian Jedi. It had been so long since the Order had gathered like this – mostly because these assemblies only occurred when something monumental had to be discussed. The last time he'd been to one of these…  
  
No. He didn't want to think about the last time. It was far too painful. Learning that the innocent boy he had rescued from a life of slavery had become the darkest of villains had broken his heart.  
  
"What's going on?" he asked Shaak. They had been close friends at the Temple before his death, and she had often told him he would have been excellent as a member of the Jedi Council, if only to stir up the old conservatives with some of his radical ideas.  
  
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, Yoda's being difficult again."  
  
Qui-gon's smile quirked with amusement. "How is that unusual?"  
  
"What's unusual," she replied, frustrated, "is that before his stubbornness was only annoying. This time it could thwart the return of the Jedi Order."  
  
He stared at her. "He's not refusing to train Luke, is he?"  
  
She nodded as a hush came over the crowd. Three figures had stepped up to the podium. Mace Windu stood behind the lectern, as serene as ever, to officiate over this meeting.  
  
Obi-wan stood at Windu's right, looking troubled. Ah, his young Padawan had matured into a fine Master. But his ordeal had aged him terribly, that much was obvious. Though he had to admire his courage – few Masters could see their apprentice fall to the dark side, live a life of exile on a desolate world, and browbeat a strong-headed youth into accepting his destiny without losing their minds entirely.  
  
On Windu's left was Yoda, looking as spectral and transparent here as a deceased Jedi would look in the material plane. Qui-gon remembered his Master's Master with a mixture of fondness and exasperation. On one hand, he was without a doubt one of the greatest Jedi who ever lived, and his wisdom was usually highly valued. On the other hand, he had a reputation for being incredibly stubborn, unwilling to bend the rules or make exceptions for anyone or anything.  
  
"This meeting will now come to order," Windu stated.  
  
He might as well have said, "Let the debate begin." Everyone knew this meeting was really about whether or not to train Luke and retrain Anakin. Obi-wan had wanted that for three years, but Yoda, the only Jedi capable of carrying out that task, was set firmly against it.  
  
"Ill-advised this is," Yoda said at once.  
  
"Everything regarding the Skywalkers is ill-advised," muttered a Duros Padawan from somewhere behind Qui-gon. A few of the Jedi elders gave him disdainful glares.  
  
"Too old Skywalker is to begin the training," Yoda went on. "Too impatient. Thirsts he does for adventure, excitement – a Jedi craves not these things. And Vader – dangerous he is. Too unpredictable an ally he would be."  
  
"What choice do we have, Yoda?" asked Obi-wan. "The Skywalkers are our last hope."  
  
"Anakin Skywalker no longer exists," Ki-Adi-Mundi cut in, "and his son shows no sign of improving on his father's example."  
  
"Don't be so quick to judge," Qui-gon advised. "Both Luke and Anakin have behaved commendably for having so little knowledge of the Jedi way. Only a little coaching…"  
  
"A little coaching?" repeated Plo Koon. "You can't cram twenty years of Jedi training into a mature mind with 'a little coaching.'"  
  
Qui-gon sighed. This issue had the Jedi deeply divided, with most of the older, higher-ranking Jedi against the issue and most of the younger Jedi for it. Though there were exceptions – Yaddle, Shaak Ti, and Eeth Koth, all members of the Jedi Council, were among those who supported training the Skywalkers.  
  
"What choice do we have?" demanded Aayla Secura. "Yoda's the last of the Jedi. The Empire's destroyed almost every Force-strong in the galaxy. The Sith grow stronger every day. The Skywalkers are our last hope. We have to train them."  
  
"We do have another option," Coleman Traebor suggested. "Find a Force-strong child and transport him or her to Dagobah. Let Yoda train him or her from the ground up. Then we will have a true Jedi to resurrect the Order."  
  
"Are you crazy?" retorted A'Sharad Hett. He began ticking off points against that idea on his fingers. "One, no mother is going to part with her offspring on the word of a Jedi ghost. Two, there's the matter of transportation – what pilot is going to take an unescorted child to an obscure wilderness world without payment? Three, by the time the kid's a Knight, Darth Sidious and Darth Kain will have grown too powerful for him or her to stop alone. And four, isn't Anakin Skywalker the one prophesied to overthrow the Sith? It doesn't make sense to send someone else to do the Chosen One's job for him."  
  
A'Sharad's defense was unexpected but admirable. Qui-gon knew he hadn't gotten along with Anakin at all during their one mission together. But it seemed that A'Sharad was not going to let his personal feelings get in the way.  
  
"Qui-gon's the one who assumed Anakin was the Chosen One, though there was no proof of it," Master Jocasta Nu shot back. "And he insisted the boy be trained against the express wishes of the Council…"  
  
"Are you suggesting this is my fault?" asked Qui-gon, more amused than angry. He'd been blamed for many things, but the genocide of the Jedi Order was a new one.  
  
"I'm suggesting that you should have been a little more careful," Master Nu replied. "You let your emotions overtake common sense regarding the boy. He was Force-strong, true, but conceived by the midichlorians? More likely his mother just didn't want to divulge his father's identity…"  
  
"How can you deny that he's the Chosen One?" demanded a Wookie Jedi. "Even the Jedi elders agree that he is the one prophesied to balance the Force!"  
  
"And no one person is to blame for Anakin's fall or the consequences of it," Shaak Ti defended. "We were all blind to the rising of the Sith, too proud to think we could be wiped out as they were destroyed a millennium ago."  
  
"The Skywalkers are our last hope," Obi-wan added. "Yoda, surely you must see that."  
  
Yoda scowled. "Very well. Trained the Skywalkers will be."  
  
"Then it's decided," Windu declared. "Obi-wan, you will go to Hoth and tell Luke Skywalker that he and Vader must report to Dagobah. Yoda, you will await their arrival."  
  
It was a solemn and rather divided Jedi Order that departed that meeting.  
  
The eternal winters of Hoth raged on as bone-chilling winds blasted through the open shield doors of the Echo Base. The Rebels bustled about in the tunnels and caverns of their new home, installing equipment or unloading supplies from the docked freighters. Others worked on the snowspeeders and droids, trying to winterize them so they could run optimally in Hoth's subzero climate. Though hardly the most comfortable of hiding places, it was home – the first permanent home many of them had known in three long years.  
  
Over the clank and whirr of machinery came a very non-mechanical bawl as two scouts entered the cavern. Because none of the base's transports were up to speed yet, groundcrew had assumed the very unlikely and undignified role of stablehands. Two of them now darted forward to take the reins of the scouts' tauntauns.  
  
Han Solo dropped down from his steed's back, his exposed nose and mouth red from the biting winds outside. "Ah, the joys of living on Hoth!" he exclaimed with a healthy note of sarcasm, throwing back his furred hood and pulling off his goggles.  
  
"There are joys?" asked a Togruta mechanic skeptically, pulling the shaggy, bleating snow-lizard off toward the stable caverns.  
  
"What, you don't like tossing tauntaun fodder and shoveling manure?" asked Han with a good-natured laugh.  
  
"Right," the mechanic replied sarcastically. "Loads of fun. Especially when the Rogues decide to have a dung fight."  
  
At that moment a blob of snow smashed into the side of Han's face. He wiped the offending matter away and looked around furiously for the culprit. He didn't have to search long – almost immediately booming metallic laughter betrayed the identity of his attacker.  
  
"All right Darth, you asked for it!" Han shouted, grabbing a chunk of ice.  
  
Darth Vader, still astride his mount, was doubled over the pommel of his saddle with laughter. His mask was limed with frost and fog billowed from the vents of his mask like smoke. Though he towered over most of the Rebels even on foot and his fearsome helmet still startled many, his presence was a welcome sight.  
  
"C'mon, Han, I think you look good in white… hey!" he yelped as Han's snowball struck him in the forehead.  
  
"You started it," Han told him.  
  
"So I did." The former Dark Lord dismounted and let a young Sakiyan woman lead the beast away. "Where's Luke?"  
  
"Off checking out a meteor impact," Han replied.  
  
"Hoth's major imports – space rock and Rebels," Vader noted.  
  
"Well, if it hadn't been for you Rogues, we never would have found this hideout."  
  
"It was Luke more than anything. He's a fine leader."  
  
The smuggler and cyborg headed deeper into the main hangar, toward a shining red N-1 fighter and a crumbling gray freighter in deep disrepair, still discussing their friend. What a twisted sense of humor fate had to throw three such widely dissimilar beings together – a Corellian mercenary, a Force-strong flying ace, and an amnesiac Sith-turned-Rebel.  
  
It had been three years since Vader's ship had crashed near the Yavin base after the Death Star's destruction. Luke had discovered him, wounded and his memory shattered, and taken him back to the base. At first everyone had detested having an Imperial in their midst, but as first Han and then Rogue Squadron had gradually accepted him, their distrust had faded. And when he'd come to the Rebellion's aid during the assault on the Massassi base – even when suspected of treason and murder – any doubts of his loyalty had been erased.  
  
"Chewie, how's it coming?" Han shouted.  
  
From atop the Falcon poured a tirade of irate Wookie tongue as Chewbacca let him know exactly how things were coming.  
  
"All right, don't lose your temper!" Han protested. "I'll go report and then come back and help you!"  
  
"So will I," Vader assured him.  
  
Chewie grumbled and went back to his work.  
  
Han ducked into the command center. Vader stooped to follow him and was interrupted by a loudly familiar voice.  
  
"Where the stang have you been?!"  
  
"Good evening, Dr. Forenze," he greeted, straightening and turning.  
  
The Fosh medical officer glowered up at him, a faint blue undertone to her white skin. Ice crystals glittered in her feathered crest, and a heavy navy-blue parka added considerable bulk to her slight frame. Her baggy dark green pants had been tucked into her fur-lined brown boots, and thick black gloves encased her claw-like fingers. Even under all that padding, though, she shivered. And Vader knew that when Forenze was uncomfortable, she made sure everyone knew it with a good tongue-lashing.  
  
"What's the matter?" she demanded, pulling her parka more snugly around her. "Don't have time to greet old friends anymore?" She gave an exaggerated shudder. "Chaos, I'm deep-freezing here! Couldn't we establish a base on Tatooine?"  
  
He laughed. "I take it you're used to tropical climes?"  
  
"Just 'cause you don't seem to feel the elements under that mask of yours," she growled. "Well, go give your report. Don't mind poor old me."  
  
"Ah, I haven't got anything to report. Snow, wind, glaciers, rocks, the usual. I'll walk with you to the med center."  
  
"Oh good. You can help me unpack our latest shipment."  
  
"I knew there was a reason you wanted me," Vader teased, following her. "Free labor."  
  
She chuckled as they walked through the icy tunnels. Vader and the rest of the Rogues had discovered these natural caverns in the ice on a scouting mission, and High Command had chosen them as the new headquarters of the Alliance. Though they had yet to thoroughly explore the entire network of caves, almost all personnel had been transferred here. High Command itself would arrive in a few days to make the move official.  
  
"What's that smell?" asked Forenze, wrinkling her beaklike face. "Is that you?"  
  
"Anyone who works around tauntauns picks up their scent."  
  
"Don't I know." She kicked something large and hairy on her way into the med center.  
  
Vader stared, nonplussed, at the dead tauntaun dumped haphazardly on the med center's usually pristine floor. "What's this?"  
  
"Oh, folks down at the stables thought we needed to redecorate," Forenze quipped. Her joking smile became a grimace. "Someone found it dead and dragged it here for an autopsy. Like I don't have enough to do."  
  
"Please tell me this isn't the 'shipment' you needed cleared up," Vader said unenthusiastically.  
  
"Shipment's right there," she replied, pointing to a single crate on the examining table.  
  
He pried open the box and began sorting through shreds of packing material. There were several bottles of some clear drug, hypodermic needles, and various pieces of unusual equipment that he'd never come across before. "What is all this?"  
  
"Just a little something our boys in the scrounging department picked up in the Hapes cluster," she replied casually. "Meant for lung operations."  
  
Vader turned to stare at her. "You mean…"  
  
"I mean." She picked up a bottle and swiftly transferred it to an insulated cabinet to prevent it from freezing. "Once I have the equipment installed – which will take a day or two, mind – we can get rid of that mask forever."  
  
His heart leapt. At last – at long last – he could shed the last of his armor. He could be free of the shadow of his past once and for all!  
  
"Dr. Forenze!" someone shouted down the hall.  
  
"What now?" she demanded.  
  
"Dack and Hobbie were clowning around in the stables and got kicked! Dack's broken some ribs and we think Hobbie's shoulder might be out of socket! We need a medic quick!"  
  
"Oh for the love of…" She grabbed a medpack and headed for the door. "Talk to you later, Vader. Is there never a break in this madhouse…"  
  
Vader couldn't keep a smile off his face as he packed away the rest of the crate's contents. After three years, his patience had paid off. His transition from Imperial war criminal to Rebel soldier would soon be complete.  
  
As he stepped out of the med center, shouting rang through the hallway. He ducked behind a corner to listen.  
  
"Afraid I was going to leave you without a goodbye kiss?" came Han's voice, angrily taunting.  
  
"I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie!" he heard Leia retort indignantly.  
  
"I can arrange that!" Han retorted hotly.  
  
The smuggler stormed past Vader's hiding place, his anger so tangible it nearly melted the walls. Concerned, Vader slipped after him.  
  
"You could use a good kiss!" Han shouted.  
  
"Thank you for the offer, but I'll pass," Vader replied.  
  
Han whirled. "What the… oh, it's you."  
  
"She's rather pretty, isn't she?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Come on, Han, your voice could carry to your own funeral."  
  
"Okay, she's attractive," Han replied grudgingly, storming toward the Falcon. "And as cold as this planet." He grabbed a roll of crating tape and two frayed wires that dangled out of an open panel like dead snakes.  
  
"For one thing, Han, jury-rigging the hyperdrive isn't going to repair it," Vader told him, plucking the wires from his grasp. "And for another thing, what was all the yelling about this time?"  
  
"Her Worship just has undisclosed feelings toward me," Han replied with a smug grin.  
  
"In love with you and in denial, eh? I notice it's made your head swell considerably."  
  
"C'mon, you should've heard us! She proclaimed her true feelings toward me."  
  
"A princess and a guy like you?" Vader demanded, unconvinced. "Besides, I did hear you. The whole base hears you when you go at it. Do you actually enjoy screaming at each other? Because it seems to happen every day now."  
  
"She must enjoy it, because she keeps coming back for more."  
  
"Do you enjoy it?"  
  
Here Han hesitated.  
  
"Ah, who's got the undisclosed feelings now?" teased Vader.  
  
"Doesn't matter," Han replied brusquely. "I'm leaving anyhow, so no more shouting matches or…"  
  
That caught Vader completely off guard. "You're leaving?"  
  
"That's why Leia went overboard." Han picked up a spanner and began banging on a power coupling. "Can't stand to let me go, I guess. But if I don't pay off Jabba soon, I'm a dead man."  
  
Vader could think of a million reasons why Han should forget Jabba and stay with the Rebellion. But all he could ask was "When?"  
  
"Soon as the Falcon's ready."  
  
"In that case, you'll be here forever."  
  
"I mean as soon as we can get her off the ground, smart-aleck." Apparently satisfied, he slammed the panel shut. "Either tonight or tomorrow morning."  
  
Vader was silent awhile. He knew Han to have a brave and loyal heart, but sometimes his mercenary mindset just got in the way. As long as he'd known the pirate he'd heard him bluster and carry on about leaving, but he'd been confidant that Han would remain with the Alliance. But now Han was going… and Vader was about to lose one of his closest friends.  
  
"We'll miss you, Han."  
  
Han glanced up in surprise. "You're not going to give me a guilt trip or yell at me to stay?"  
  
"Why should I? You've obviously made up your mind. And it's not fair to force you to serve the Rebellion – no one should fight for a cause involuntarily. You're good in a fight and Luke and I'll hate losing you, but I wish you the best of luck."  
  
"Thanks," Han replied, smiling.  
  
"Hey," Vader told him, good-naturedly punching his shoulder. "You'll always have a place here."  
  
"I know."  
  
"So how can I help you get the Falcon off the ground?"  
  
"Go topside with Chewie. Help him work out the mess groundcrew made of the shields."  
  
Chewie bellowed.  
  
"I agree," Vader replied. "It wasn't groundcrew, it was you, Han."  
  
"Hey, don't go there!" Han retorted.  
  
Half a galaxy away, six Stardestroyers cruised through space, starlight gleaming on their massive wedge-shaped hulls. Slightly behind them, like a mother rancor keeping a watchful eye on her cubs, was their flagship, a juggernaut that dwarfed even the largest of the other ships. Silent, eerie, ferociously beautiful, and ruthlessly lethal, the Executor was without a doubt the finest ship ever to be admitted into the Imperial fleet.  
  
Darth Kain hated it.  
  
He stared out the huge viewports that dominated the bridge, hands clenched behind his back, his gaze roving over the blackness of space and the stars scattered over it like so many jewels. He detested this gargantuan hulk of a ship, itself a symbol of the Empire's excessiveness. His own ship, the Slave, might not be a suitable show of force toward the Rebellion, but it was his preferred method of travel.  
  
But Sidious commanded him to take the Executor on his assault on the new Rebel base. And he would comply with his master's wishes. There was no alternative.  
  
The artificial lights of the bridge gleamed on his sable armor and silver T-slit visor, and the continuing cycle of processed air stirred his jet-black cloak ever so slightly. Kain was a silent, foreboding figure, surrounded by an aura of deadly force. As a Sith Apprentice and the right-hand man of Emperor Palpatine, he was certainly not one to be trifled with. Even his men gave him a generous berth.  
  
In a former life he'd gone by a different name, shunned a title or cause of any sort, and lived only for the next hunt. A bounty hunter garbed in his father's armor and flying his father's ship, Boba Fett had been regarded as the best of his kind – scum, yes, but high-vintage scum. But he'd been untrusting of his own emotions, locking away his pain and anger, maintaining a soulless front. That had been a grave weakness, Kain realized.  
  
Now Boba Fett was dead, and Darth Kain took his place. Instead of banishing his rage, he reveled in it, letting it fuel the dark side of the Force.  
  
Some might have found it ironic that he, a clone, a manufactured human, was also an artificial Force-sensitive, gaining access to the dark side through frequent transfusions of midichlorian-rich blood. He found it appropriate. No roll of the chance cubes had decided his destiny. He had been hand-selected by the Emperor to carry out his will and serve as the second half of the Sith Order.  
  
Restlessly he paced before the viewport like a caged beast. The probe droids hadn't reported back yet, but soon – very soon – information would come back. Information on the location of the Rebel base – and the last of the cursed Jedi. At long last he would have revenge for his father's death. And at last he would be able to deliver Skywalker to his master.  
  
He turned and strode back to his quarters. While he waited, he might as well ready himself. He was about due for another transfusion anyhow. 


	2. Chapter 2

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes, this chapter's pretty predictable. Don't worry, the next few chapters will be more than just regurgitation of the Episode V plot.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Awareness returned slowly for Luke. His world gradually faded to white as he pried open his eyelids. His pulse thudded heavily in his skull. He could feel something crusting his face; licking his lips, he realized it was dried blood. He felt strangely heavy, as if suspended…  
  
His eyes shot the rest of the way open as the memory of recent events returned abruptly. He and his tauntaun had been ambushed! There had been a hideous white-furred face leering at him, the sharp pain of claws, awful screams and snaps as his mount was slaughtered… then he'd blacked out.  
  
The wampa was nearby – he could hear it greedily snarling close by as it devoured its kill. Luke, meanwhile, hung from the ceiling of the cavern, his feet embedded in the ice. He was being stored for a later meal, like a carcass hanging in a meat locker.  
  
His lightsaber lay buried in a snowdrift nearby, and he struggled to grab it. It was too far… he'd never reach it… just a meter, but it may as well be a light year…  
  
The wampa gave a little growl and stood, blood smeared over its lips and paws. It came closer, eyeing Luke hungrily.  
  
/Calm/ Luke ordered himself. /Be calm. Think only about what needs done./ He shut out thoughts of being the creature's midnight snack, focusing on the lightsaber. It needed to be closer if he was to use it to free himself…  
  
He let himself go, relaxing totally. All background noises faded to a dim babble – the shuffles and throaty growls of the wampa, the hollow cry of the wind, a slight clatter of vibrating metal…  
  
The saber smacked into his palm.  
  
Luke didn't think, only immersed himself in the flow of the Force. One swipe of his father's plasma sword melted the ice imprisoning him, dumping him at the feet of the startled monster. A second slash, and an eerie pain-wracked roar reverberated from the snowy walls as the beast's smoking arm fell to the floor of the cave. Taking advantage of the moment, Luke scrambled out of the cave.  
  
The wampa's whimpering cries were lost in the howling winds as Luke Skywalker vanished into the swirling whiteness.  
  
--------  
  
Hours had passed, and Luke still hadn't returned. Han tried not to worry about it as he, Chewie, and Vader worked, but it was impossible. He liked the kid a lot, like a little brother. But he shoved his concern into a corner of his mind and concentrated on welding a circuit into place. How much trouble could a guy get into while checking out a meteor impact?  
  
"What are you doing, Chewie?!" he heard Vader snap. "Don't take it apart! It took me a week to fix it!"  
  
Chewie roared.  
  
"It's not my fault the parts don't fit right. If Han used the right components for once…"  
  
Another bellow.  
  
"Watch you language!"  
  
Meanwhile, a pair of droids making their way into the hangar were also fighting.  
  
"It's not my fault!" Threepio was insisting. "I didn't ask you to turn on the thermal heater! I merely commented that it was freezing in her chamber."  
  
Artoo beeped a retort.  
  
"But it's supposed to be freezing! How are we going to get all her things dried out? I really don't know…"  
  
Artoo bleeped irritatedly.  
  
"Oh switch off!" the protocol droid snapped before turning his attention to the Falcon. "Master Solo!"  
  
"What now?" Han snapped. Few things annoyed him more than that fussy droid.  
  
"Mistress Leia has been trying to reach you, but you aren't answering your communicator…"  
  
"I shut it off. Why, what does her Worship want to yell at me for now?"  
  
"She wanted to know if you've seen Master Luke. He hasn't come back yet."  
  
"We don't know where he is," Vader replied.  
  
"Nobody knows where he is!" said Threepio, a note of panic in his voice.  
  
That got Han's attention. If Luke hadn't come back or even commed the base, he was in trouble.  
  
Vader seemed to think the same thing. He leaped down from the top of the Falcon and motioned for Han to join him.  
  
"Come on!" he called. "He may have come through the south entrance! I've done that on occasion!"  
  
"Sir, might I inquire what's going on?" asked Threepio as Han slid down to the floor.  
  
"Why not?" Han shot back, running to join Vader.  
  
"Impossible man!" he heard the droid mutter.  
  
The two of them ran for the south entrance, near the stables. Rebels flattened against the walls to avoid a collision with the two men.  
  
"Do you think that 'meteor' could have been something more?" asked Vader.  
  
"Dunno," Han replied. "But you know the kid. He's always getting himself in trouble."  
  
"Perhaps he's just playing sabaac with the other Rogues," Vader offered, a kind of desperate hope in his voice.  
  
When they burst into the stables, their worst fears were realized. Luke was nowhere to be seen, and no one recalled seeing him pass through.  
  
"He may have forgotten to check in," suggested Mela hopefully.  
  
"Not likely," Han replied. "Get the speeders ready. We'll go search for him."  
  
"There's a big storm blowing in!" someone in ground crew protested.  
  
"And our friend's out there!" Vader replied.  
  
"The speeders aren't working," Wedge said in frustration. "Ground crew hasn't gotten them adapted to the cold yet."  
  
"Then we'll take tauntauns," Vader said shortly, grabbing the halter of the nearest steed.  
  
"Your tauntaun will freeze to death before you reach the first marker!" the pessimistic ground crew member shouted.  
  
"Then we'll see you in Hell!" Han retorted, and the two of them tore out of the stables and into the bitter night.  
  
Wind and snow raged all around them as they plowed through the storm. After traveling about a hundred meters they realized that no one else had joined their search party.  
  
"Don't they even care about Luke?!" Vader snapped over the gale.  
  
"They may have already given him up for dead!" Han replied. "Face it! There's not much hope that we'll find him alive!"  
  
"I'm not giving up on him!" Vader replied. "I'll cover the southwest quadrant! You take the southeast! He may have gotten lost on the way back!"  
  
"Back here in an hour!" Han shouted. "We don't want to get locked out or we'll never survive the night!"  
  
"Copy!"  
  
Han watched the whiteness of the Hoth night swallow Vader up before continuing on his way.  
  
--------  
  
Vader plowed on through the thick storm, urging his exhausted mount on. They couldn't give up, they couldn't! Luke was alive; he could feel it in his bones. But he wouldn't be much longer if they didn't get him inside the base before nightfall.  
  
There seemed to be a slight pull to his left, and he kneed the tauntaun in that direction. He wondered if, untrained as he was, he was allowed to be using the Force, but he put the thought out of his mind. Even if he was doing something forbidden, he felt it would be justified in this case. After all, a life was at stake.  
  
The tauntaun started, wailing. Vader stroked her neck to calm her as he peered into the night. There! A hump of ice with a fissure gashing it open, wide enough to steer a swoop bike through, was visible through the snow. Could Luke be there? If he'd kept his head in the storm, he'd have enough sense to take shelter.  
  
He had a job of urging his tauntaun into the cavern, and he soon found out why. The air inside was thick with the rancid-carrion stink of wampa. Tauntaun bones, strings of meat and tendon still clinging to them, glistened with scarlet ice in a frozen red pool. Embedded in the icy wall itself was a second skeleton, only much older and cleaner. And on the floor of the cave lay a white-furred arm, somehow bloodlessly severed.  
  
His steed was nearly hysterical with terror now. As he struggled to control the animal, he spotted something lying on the floor that alarmed him deeply.  
  
Luke's comlink had been frozen into the crimson ice near the fresh bones.  
  
/He was here/ he thought nervously. /Or was some time ago. But where is he now?/  
  
Tying the tauntaun to a stalagmite, he bent down to pry the comlink out of the ice. Carefully brushing it off, he slipped it into his belt pouch.  
  
A panicked shriek and a cold knife of warning in his gut made him look up. The injured wampa lurched painfully out of the shadows, its remaining arm raised and teeth bared in fury.  
  
/Oh stars, I thought it'd left…/  
  
He rolled to avoid the razor-sharp claws slicing down at him. Getting to his feet, he ripped his blaster from its holster and squeezed off a round. The reek of singed hair filled the cavern, and the beast bellowed in fresh agony.  
  
/Don't like it when your dinner bites back, do you?/  
  
His tauntaun squealed her terror. The wampa turned to the animal eagerly. Tethered prey would be easier for it to handle than prey with a weapon.  
  
"Oh no you don't!" Vader barked, firing again.  
  
The shots weren't doing as much damage to the creature as they should have, but they evidently hurt it. The predator hesitated, torn between devouring its prey and ridding itself of this painful nuisance. Vader took advantage of its moment of indecisiveness and bolted forward, leaping onto the tauntaun's back and fighting to untie the reins from the stalagmite.  
  
Another howl shook the icy walls. Claws like knives raked the air, and Vader had to flatten himself against the tauntaun's back to avoid the strike. His mount bleated pathetically and skittered away as far as her tether would allow.  
  
The wampa lashed out again, and this time Vader wasn't so lucky. Fire slashed down his left arm, and claws tore across the left shoulder of his mount. The tauntaun shrieked in pain as scarlet streaked her white fur.  
  
Anger flooded Vader as he clutched his wounded arm. Why couldn't this monster just let them be?  
  
Something dark filled his chest, a cold fire that spread rapidly through his veins. It filled his vision and made his ears roar, frightening him and making him lust for more at the same time. Without thinking he reached within himself and drew out a measure of that black fire, molding it in his mind, willing it to do his bidding, and it obeyed unquestioningly.  
  
The wampa's black eyes bulged, and it crumpled to the floor of the cave, gagging violently. Vader watched impassively, without reaction, without remorse…  
  
…the officer fell to his knees, hands to his throat, his face ashen with fear and oxygen deprivation. His brown eyes fixed on him pleadingly as his mouth worked feverishly to suck in breath.  
  
"Please…" he choked through Vader's Force-grip. "Mercy…"  
  
"You're a pathetic fool, Admiral," Vader thundered, disgusted. "I don't waste mercy on fools."  
  
A pulse of the dark side contracted his grip, and with a gruesome wet crackle the Admiral sagged to the floor…  
  
Vader screamed, banishing the memory from his mind and, with it, his anger. The darkness retreated, but it didn't recede entirely. Rather, it lurked in the corners of his awareness, just outside his peripheral vision. In fact, now that he recognized it, he realized it had always been there, waiting… but for what?  
  
The wampa looked plaintively up at him, pain and terror glittering in its eyes as it panted for breath. All was deathly still as they stared at each other, both terrified by what had just happened. Even the tauntaun was quiet as stone.  
  
Finally the wampa shuffled to its feet. It backed into a corner of its cave, whining.  
  
Vader felt like creeping off in terror himself. Stars, what had he done? What was he becoming? He'd spent three long years trying to shake off his murderous reputation, and in one heartbeat of fear and anger he'd very nearly returned to that path.  
  
/Once down the dark path you start, forever will it dominate your destiny./  
  
Who had said that? And when?  
  
The wampa retreated to a dark recess of its cave. It would be unreasonable to pursue the creature farther into the cave, which was just as well. After what had just occurred, he was in no mood to kill the beast.  
  
Vader urged his mount out of the cave and back into the steadily growing storm, still very shaken by the entire ordeal.  
  
--------  
  
"Luke."  
  
Luke didn't want to look up. He was exhausted, and the snow was so soft, like a downy woolen blanket…  
  
"Luke."  
  
The voice was insistent, but he chose to ignore it. He'd long since stopped feeling the cold – in fact, he now felt surprisingly warm. The wind no longer scoured his face, and even his cuts had stopped stinging…  
  
"Luke."  
  
Wouldn't they take the hint and go? He reluctantly raised his head and opened his eyes.  
  
"Ben?" he moaned in disbelief.  
  
Obi-wan Kenobi stood before him, his humble robes slack and undisturbed by the vicious winds. But it was a washed-out, ghostly, transparent Obi-wan, glowing softly, yet casting no light on the snow beneath him.  
  
"You and Vader must go to the Dagobah system," Obi-wan told him.  
  
"Dagobah system?" he repeated weakly.  
  
"There you will both learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me."  
  
"Yoda?" Dimly the significance of the message penetrated his chilled mind. Another Jedi… another living Jedi… his training… Vader's…  
  
Obi-wan's image flickered, to be replaced with the image of a man on the back of a tauntaun…  
  
And his strength failed him.  
  
--------  
  
Leia waited anxiously in the hangar, expecting, at any moment, to see one or more riders emerge from the storm. Chewie hovered close by, shifting and rumbling nervously, and most of Rogue Squadron clustered nearby, whispering anxiously. Even the droids seemed concerned, venturing outdoors every now and again to scan the area with Artoo's sensors.  
  
"Still no sign of them?" asked Forenze, ducking past Chewie to stand by Leia.  
  
She shook her head. "I hope nothing's happened to them."  
  
"They're all tough men," Forenze told her a little more gruffly than usual, as if to disguise her concern. "They'll pull through."  
  
"All patrols in," announced Major Derlin. "Still no…"  
  
General Riekkan gestured sharply. Derlin looked over to Leia, nodded understandingly, and lowered his voice respectfully.  
  
"Still no sign of Skywalker, Solo, or Vader."  
  
All was still for a moment, as if no one dared to break the inevitable to the princess.  
  
"Your Highness," Riekkan told her gently, "the shield doors must be closed."  
  
She turned away, biting her lip to hold back her tears. Luke was her closest friend, like an extension of her heart. Vader, once her greatest foe, was now also a good friend. And Han… she didn't know exactly how she felt about him, but she still had no desire to see any harm come to him. Closing the doors would most certainly doom all three men to slow death. Could she bear it, knowing she had given up on them?  
  
But she knew she couldn't endanger the entire Alliance for the sake of three men. The storm had to be sealed out of the base – otherwise they would all freeze to death. Not making eye contact with anyone, she nodded with extreme reluctance.  
  
"We'll send search parties out in the morning," Riekkan assured her.  
  
Forenze clenched her jaw worriedly. "Hope those boys have sense to take shelter…" she began.  
  
A painful wail pierced the roaring wind and grinding of the doors, and the silhouette of a single rider became visible.  
  
"Hold the doors!" shouted Derlin.  
  
Someone slapped the lever down, and the doors rumbled to a halt. The rider – Vader – gave his mount a final urgent slap, ordering the nearly frozen beast forward.  
  
The tauntaun staggered into the hangar, gave an agonized squeal, and tottered dangerously on its feet. Vader half-jumped, half-fell from its back and rolled away as it thudded heavily onto its side. Ground crew swarmed over the dead animal as Rogue Squadron and Forenze rushed forward to tend to Vader.  
  
"Get him warm!" Riekkan ordered, throwing a thermal cape over Vader's shoulders to warm him up. "Do you have a report?"  
  
Vader nodded, shivering uncontrollably. His mask was so crusted with ice that it was nearly white. He rubbed the lenses furiously to clear them enough to see.  
  
"Wampa," he replied shortly. "Got my arm… and my mount… found this in its cave."  
  
Riekkan gravely took the comlink from Vader's hands. Leia noted with shock that it was Luke's.  
  
"Where's Han?" demanded Vader, shrugging of Forenze as she tried to drag him toward the med center.  
  
"Go with Forenze," ordered Riekkan, ignoring the question. "You're wounded…"  
  
"Where's Han?" Vader repeated.  
  
"There's been no sign of him," Wedge told him. "Him or Luke."  
  
"Then why are you shutting the shield doors?!" he shouted.  
  
"Vader," Riekkan told him, "there's nothing we can do. The storm is going full-force now. It would be impossible to find anything. You can search with the scouts in the morning." He shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry."  
  
Vader stood silently, watching the doors grind closed. When they finally clanged shut his shoulders slumped in defeat, seeming to echo the mournful howl from the Falcon as Chewie vented his emotions.  
  
Leia wanted to cry, to force open the doors and dash into the storm to find Luke and Han, to lock herself in her quarters and never come out. She did none of those things. They'd be senseless anyhow. Instead, she shook Vader's arm to jolt him out of his trance.  
  
"Come on," she told him, a catch in her voice. "You'll be no good to Han or Luke if you let those cuts get infected."  
  
He looked at her, his mask ghostly with frost. "If Luke or Han…" He couldn't finish.  
  
"I'm worried too," she replied, tears flooding her eyes. She hastily reached up to wipe them. She couldn't cry, she was a Rebel leader, it would demoralize the troops to see her cry…  
  
Chewie growled softly, and he swept the two of them up in a comforting embrace. The action surprised her, as well as breaking her resolve to not weep. She buried her face in the long ginger fur and vented her fear. 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3  
  
Darth Kain watched the young man work, silent but thoughtful. He was out of the custodian's line of sight; to tell the truth, he doubted the janitor would have seen him if he'd been standing right in front of him. He was oblivious to the universe in general, singing a lively Modal Nodes tune and whirling the ultrasound cleaner around as if it were a microphone. One of the Executor's civilian drones, among the many who tended to mundane but necessary chores aboard the ship such as laundry, housekeeping, machinery repairs, meal preparation, and general maintenance.  
  
This particular drone had a lousy track record, habitually shirking his tasks and mouthing off to his superiors. And lately he'd been growing more impudent, eavesdropping on important conversations and interjecting with snide comments of his own, typically until he got thrown out. If Kain were to dismiss or even kill the janitor, his absence would hardly affect the conditions of the Executor.  
  
But he had other plans for him.  
  
He stepped forward. The young man didn't see him right away, still engrossed in his song. Kain now caught a glimpse of the gaudy armbands and rock-band-logo shirt that identified him as a teenage punk. All the better – punks came a credit a dozen, and they went missing often. No one would question this one's disappearance.  
  
The custodian still hadn't seen him. Perhaps a little flattery would get his attention.  
  
"Doing a good job there, sir."  
  
The effect was astonishing. The janitor stopped singing in mid-measure, straightened his back, and snapped a salute. "Yes sir!"  
  
From that action, Kain was able to make an impression of what this man was truly like. He didn't particularly like what he saw – a lazy delinquent with aspirations for greatness, but lacking either talent or drive to accomplish them. The janitor had taken a simple job aboard this ship in hopes of bootlicking his way toward a promotion to the rank of officer without going through the trouble of actually enlisting and enduring boot camp and combat training. Kain had little patience or use for these types. But this one…  
  
"Your name."  
  
"Ridge Devarra, sir!" he barked.  
  
"At ease, Devarra," he ordered, allowing the slightest trickle of amusement to enter his voice. With a flick of the Force, he sent the ultrasound cleaner flying into a wall, shattering it. "It's clear this job is… unsuited to your talents, Devarra. This calls for a transfer."  
  
The custodian grinned despite himself. He had obviously been hoping for a break like this.  
  
"Go to the medical bay and await my arrival," he ordered. "I have a special assignment for you that will greatly aid our next mission."  
  
"Yes sir!" Devarra nearly tripped over the broken cleaner running for the medbay.  
  
Kain allowed himself a sly smile. He'd had a look at Devarra's medical files before actually tracking the punk down. And his required blood sample revealed both an unusually high midichlorian count and a blood type that matched Kain's exactly. Devarra was about to serve the Empire in a capacity he could never have dreamed of.  
  
He stalked toward the bridge. While the medical droids had their way with Devarra, he would see if the probe droids had dug up anything of worth.  
  
Captain Piett would never have believed it possible, but he missed Darth Vader.  
  
He hated Darth Kain. Not for the same reason Admiral Ozzel did – his past as a bounty hunter – but because of his unpredictable nature. With Vader, you always knew where you stood. You knew that he expected no less than perfection and that you accepted death as the punishment if you erred, though on occasion he would merely give an exceptionally painful warning if he deemed the mistake trivial enough. Kain, however, could go from almost amiable to violent in a matter of minutes. The Admiral who had served before Ozzel, for example, had maintained his post for three months solid despite several major tactical blunders, his mistakes ignored by Kain each time. Then, without warning, he had been brutally executed for insubordination – reportedly for merely rolling his eyes at a questionable order.  
  
Idly Piett wondered what had happened to Lord Vader. The official explanation was that he'd died in combat at the Battle of Yavin. But rumors to the contrary abounded, ranging from the likely (that he'd deserted and was now planning a coup) to the completely outlandish (he had renounced the war entirely and now played redball organ for a seedy dive on Tatooine). Piett personally, favored the story the stormtroopers were circulating among themselves – that Vader had switched sides and was now working for the Rebel Alliance.  
  
At any rate, Vader was beyond the Empire's reach, and they had the volatile Kain to deal with.  
  
The atmosphere on the bridge seemed to grow twice as heavy as the Sith Lord entered, his steps quick and his gaze demanding, almost hungry, as he scanned the area. Piett tried to hide his nervousness by occupying himself with a computer screen.  
  
And noticed a recently received transmission.  
  
"Admiral, I think you should see this."  
  
Admiral Ozzel, who was berating a technician nearby, hardly glanced at the screen. "What now, Captain?"  
  
Piett suppressed the urge to sigh. If Kain was the man Piett hated most, Ozzel wasn't much farther down the list. Arrogant and overconfident, he had made it perfectly clear that he thought himself superior to all aboard this ship – even Darth Kain himself.  
  
"We've a report from a probe droid in the Hoth System, sir."  
  
Ozzel gave him a look that hovered somewhere between incredulous and scornful, then bent over the image the probe droid had sent – the image of a shield generator, half-buried in snow and ice, with some sort of gun turret nearby.  
  
"Rubbish," Ozzel dismissed immediately. "There are so many uncharted settlements out there that it would be a waste of time to investigate them all. It's either smugglers or prospectors."  
  
"There have been no reports of smuggling in this sector before," Piett countered, not in the mood to be blown off today. "And there are no valuable minerals in any quantity to interest prospectors. And finally, why would smugglers or prospectors have a weapon that large parked next to their camp? Admit it, this is the best lead we've had…"  
  
"We have thousands of probe droids searching every backwater pothole in this galaxy!" Ozzel snapped. "I want proof, not leads! I don't intend to go endlessly chasing around…"  
  
The end of that retort snagged in his throat. His eyes widened, then rolled back in his head. His legs folded beneath him as he collapsed at Darth Kain's feet.  
  
"You found something, Admiral Piett?" the Sith asked casually but with emphasis on Piett's new title, completely ignoring the corpse.  
  
It took all of Piett's strength to keep his terror locked down. "Yes, my lord," he said quickly, stepping back to let him look at the screen.  
  
Like Ozzel, Kain only took the briefest of glances at the screen. Unlike the dead Admiral, he seemed to have gathered a wealth of information from that one look.  
  
"That's it," he announced. "Set our course for the Hoth System, full speed."  
  
Piett had learned over the years to never, ever question a Sith Lord, no matter how ludicrous his order or claim. "Yes, my lord."  
  
Kain turned to the officer who had just stepped onto the bridge. "General Veers, prepare your men!"  
  
Personnel began dragging Ozzel's body away. One of them muttered just loud enough for Piett to hear "Two weeks – that's gotta be a new record for shortest time served. Good luck, Piett."  
  
Piett couldn't reply – his fear seemed to have glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He couldn't help but feel that he'd just stepped up to the butcher's block, the next nerf to be slaughtered at its capricious master's whim.  
  
He was really beginning to miss Lord Vader now. At least under Vader you knew in advance before you actually met your doom.  
  
When Wedge entered the hangar with a ration tray, he found Leia sitting on a supply crate, head buried in her hands.  
  
"Hey Princess," he offered. "I brought some dinner in case you were hungry."  
  
She shook her head, lips tight.  
  
Awkward silence reigned for a few minutes. At last Wedge ventured, "Any idea where Forenze went?"  
  
"Medbay," Leia replied. "Last I heard, she was screaming at the droids. She's on the verge of hysteria."  
  
Wedge sat down next to her. "I feel a little hysterical myself. Luke's been so lucky up until now, I always thought of him as… I dunno… invincible."  
  
She stared at the Falcon, eyes misting. "There's not much hope of him pulling through this one."  
  
"Hey, the kid might surprise you," Wedge replied. "I've met men from Tatooine, and they're a tough breed there." He thought a moment, then added "It's tough to kill off a Corellian too."  
  
A weary but welcome smile appeared. "Is it that obvious?"  
  
"Hey, us Rogues enjoy your spats. And the girls seem to see right through them, being the romance experts they are. They've been saying it's only a matter of time before something serious blooms."  
  
Leia stared at the shield doors, as if trying to see through the heavy steel and the blinding snows outside to seek out her friends.  
  
"Princess," he said gently, laying a hand on her arm, "I promise the Rogues will find them. I can't believe a simple snowstorm could take them out."  
  
She only nodded.  
  
Wedge bid her a quiet goodbye, then took the food tray aboard the Falcon. Judging from the knocking and banging echoing through the ship, someone was attempting some repairs. It wasn't the Wookie, though – when he peeked into Chewbacca's cabin, he saw the Falcon's first mate was fast asleep. For a moment he wondered how he could stand to take a nap when his friend was in peril, but a bottle of some foul-smelling tranquilizing medication near his bunk told the whole story. He figured Forenze was foisting the stuff on everyone close to Han or Luke to keep them from wearing themselves out with worry.  
  
He turned a corner and found Vader yanking savagely at a power coupling, grunting with the exertion.  
  
"Hey, pick on a sublight engine your own size," he advised, trying to lighten the mood.  
  
Vader gave a final jerk and wrenched the coupling free. "Depolarized," he said shortly by way of explanation.  
  
"I see. Uh… don't know if you eat through that mask… but I brought you something…"  
  
Vader shook his head.  
  
"Ah. Okay, I'm sure Hobbie'll polish it off." He turned to go. "Vader?"  
  
"Hmm?" grunted Vader.  
  
"I know you're worried sick over Han and Luke. We all are. But we can't do anything about it until morning. So I suggest you get some rest so you can join the search parties tomorrow, okay?"  
  
No reply. Wedge gave a sigh and trudged out. If he didn't want to be comforted, that was his problem.  
  
Behind him, Vader threw the old coupling into the discard bin. Retreating to either the Millennium Falcon or the Desert Angel had become his chief means of coping with stress. Life always seemed so much easier when he was fixing things. But tonight even that wasn't helping. If anything, being aboard Han's ship only made him miss the pirate's company even more.  
  
Closing his eyes, he thrust any thought of Han or Luke out of his mind. They couldn't be dead. Somehow, deep down in his bones, he felt their presences, which was some comfort. They had taken shelter, or were on their way back to the base. They would survive.  
  
But a deeper fear gnawed at him – the fear of that horrible power that he had somehow awakened back at the wampa's cave. Why had it arisen so suddenly, without warning? Nothing of the sort had ever happened to him before, had it…  
  
…"It's all Obi-wan's fault!" he screamed, hurling the spanner across the rundown garage. "He's jealous! He's holding me back!" His voice broke on that final word.  
  
"Anakin, you're not all-powerful," the young woman chided, setting her tray down.  
  
"Well, I should be!" he blurted, his throat so tight it was a wonder it didn't snap under the strain. "Someday, I will be the most powerful Jedi ever! I will even learn to keep people from dying!"  
  
"Anakin, what's wrong?" she pleaded.  
  
He didn't reply – how could he? Just thinking about it made his guts turn over. Letting it go, allowing that filth to spew forth, that horrible story to emerge… she'd think him a monster! And that alone was a far worse punishment than any the Order could levy upon him.  
  
But if contained any longer, the nightmarish events from last night would poison him fatally. He had to release his anger, his pain, his agony… even if it meant losing her.  
  
"I… killed them."  
  
She stared at him, not comprehending.  
  
"They're dead," he grated, striving for her to understand. "All of them. Every single one of them!"  
  
Her expression became one of horror. But he was beyond stopping himself now. His rage built with every sentence.  
  
"And not just the men!" A vein throbbed painfully in his temple. "But the women! And the children!"  
  
Scalding tears clouded his vision. He no longer saw her face, no longer cared. His hatred clawed in his chest like some wild animal, raging to be set free.  
  
"They're like animals! And I slaughtered them like animals!" His voice had reached a fevered pitch, as ragged and hard as broken stone. "I hate them!" he bit out, the words hot and fierce on his tongue…  
  
This time he didn't scream – he choked. Bitter bile churned up the back of his throat and drove him, gagging and retching, to his knees. His head spun, water streamed from his eyes… the anger was returning, searing, burning… no! A hideous and powerful lust was straining against its bonds, crying for release… no, no, no!  
  
He staggered blindly from the Falcon and ran, not caring who he startled or bumped into, getting himself thoroughly lost in the tunnels of the base. He ran as if to escape some invisible, deadly enemy, as real as any predator…  
  
A futile run, for how could he outrun himself?  
  
A yelp of pain mercifully pierced his terror.  
  
"Ouch! Watch where you're going, you great bantha!"  
  
He grunted a half-hearted apology and tried to get around Forenze, but she grabbed his arm to stay him.  
  
"What the hell are you running from? We aren't under attack are we?" She peered behind him. "Thought not. Sit down, chill a moment, not literally… ach, you've reopened your wampa cuts. Lucky I always carry some supplies with me… won't you sit down!"  
  
Still too stunned to resist, he allowed her to shove him down on a ledge and wrench his sleeve up. Fresh blood had soaked through the bacta wraps, and these she stripped off with a practiced ease.  
  
While she tended to his wounds he looked around. His flight had taken him to a cavern he'd never seen before, one as yet untouched by the base. Its walls were a shimmering pale blue, the floor a darker azure like sapphire, with lights winking and shining in its depths like stars. Trace amounts of heat had sculpted columns and waves of ice more magnificent than any manmade carving, and the mirror-smooth floor duplicated the chamber's wonders. For a moment Vader lost himself, and his turmoil, in marveling at the natural beauty here.  
  
"Lovely, isn't it?" Forenze asked, giving the fresh bandage a final adjustment. "General Riekkan calls it the Sky Cave. He says no one's to use it for anything except a viewing room."  
  
"It would be a shame to see it damaged," Vader replied softly.  
  
"Now suppose you tell me what's wrong?" she asked, sitting down beside him.  
  
"Nothing," he replied bluntly.  
  
"Liar," she shot back. "Then why were you tearing down that hall like you had half the Imperial army on your tail? That wampa come back to finish you?"  
  
That remark only reminded him of his encounter in the cave – and the mental wounds it had torn. Reluctantly at first, he began to relate what had happened and the horrific memories it had triggered. As he talked the words seemed to flow more easily, until at last he had opened up to her entirely, even revealing the second surge of memory aboard the Falcon.  
  
When he'd finished speaking he watched her for the expected reaction of horror and disgust. To his surprise, and Forenze's credit, he saw only profound sympathy.  
  
"I'm sorry, Vader, that you had to go through that."  
  
"How can you be sorry?" He buried his mask in his hands. "I almost killed that wampa with the dark side. I've worked so hard to have the Alliance accept me! If I ever fall back to my old ways…" He couldn't finish.  
  
Forenze finished for him. "You'd scratch all trust the Alliance placed in you."  
  
He nodded grimly.  
  
"Sounds like what just happened really shook you. Sorry, but I majored in medicine, not psychiatrics. Not much I can do but prescribe a sedative."  
  
"I'm scared, Forenze. What if the next person I hurt when I lose my temper is Luke or Han? How could I live with myself after that?"  
  
She didn't have an answer for that.  
  
For an age they sat there, lost in their thoughts and the wonder of the Sky Cave, silent save Vader's metallic breathing.  
  
"I like to come here," Forenze said at last. "When I'm feeling down. It calms me."  
  
"It's a refuge of peace," Vader admitted. "I wish I'd known it existed earlier."  
  
"Should've asked Mela, she found it." Forenze sighed. "Lucky fate drew you here tonight. Maybe getting that load off your chest will help you a bit. Its easier to carry a memory if it's shared."  
  
"Thank you, Forenze, for sharing my burden."  
  
"No problem. Anything for a friend." She sighed. "You know, I met my husband in an ice cavern like this one."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Glacier Galactic Park on Chandrila. He was studying abroad to be a gemologist. I was working on my internship. He was there to collect mineral samples, I on a dare. When I first saw him, I knew." She smiled. "We had three happy years together, before…" An uncharacteristically morose expression dulled her orange eyes.  
  
Vader nodded, not asking. He knew already – Forenze's family had joined the alien resistance against the New Order, seeking rights for non-humans. And the Empire had responded by sending stormtroopers to crush them. Her parents and husband had died, and she had barely escaped with her life – and an eternal hatred toward the Empire.  
  
"Whoever led that attack on your family, Forenze, I hope he gets his just reward someday," he vowed.  
  
"Don't say that," she snapped.  
  
"Why not…" he began, then froze. "Forenze…"  
  
She shook her head furiously, tears in her eyes. "Don't you dare say you're sorry," she ordered huskily. "A Sith killed my parents. Not a Rogue pilot. There's a difference."  
  
There was so much he wanted to say, so much he SHOULD say. But the words wouldn't come. How could he apologize for depriving her of the ones she loved? And stars, she'd had the opportunity to kill him many times! A slip of her scalpel or a slight overdose of anesthesia during the upgrade operations, or even when he had first entered the base, injured and helpless…  
  
"Why?" In that word he managed to say everything.  
  
"When you came into the med center three years ago, so badly wounded and weak, I thought the Force had given me the perfect opportunity to exact revenge for my family. No one would have to know, and no one would care. But my medical professionalism won out. I couldn't let any patient in my care, even you, die when it was in my power to save them." She fixed him with a steady gaze. "If I had given in to my hate, I would have lost a dear friend without even realizing it."  
  
He opened his mouth, not sure whether to comfort her, thank her, or apologize. But he realized that all three were futile. She wasn't the type to allow anyone to comfort her, she blew off any attempt at thanks, and she had already forgiven his actions.  
  
"I'm honored to call you friend," he said at last.  
  
She smiled faintly. "And I'm honored to call you friend, Vader."  
  
There was a long silence that spoke volumes. Then Vader took the medical officer into his arms in a gentle embrace.  
  
"They're here!"  
  
Dack, the newest member of Rogue Squadron, came running into the hangar, a huge grin on his boyish face. The pilots glanced up, startled, from their work at getting the speeders flight-ready.  
  
"Who's here?" asked Dekham.  
  
"Han and Luke! Just came in! They're alive!"  
  
Vader was the first to act. He leaped down from the canopy of his speeder and bolted for the shield doors. Wedge was close behind.  
  
Soldiers were already clustered around the open doors, guiding a frost-crusted body on a repulsor-stretcher toward the waiting med center. Vader's heart lurched when he saw the unhealthy blue pallor and wicked claw marks on Luke's face, but relaxed once he was sure the injuries weren't serious.  
  
Han was trying to wrestle his way past a hysterically happy Chewie and answer Leia's questions at the same time.  
  
"…found him lying in a snow drift – get off, hairball! – all clawed up and mumbling nonsense. Managed to get a shelter pulled up, and we waited out the worst of the storm before I dragged him back. Too bad the cold finished my tauntaun, or we'd've been back here a lot sooner."  
  
Vader began to go to Han, but a viselike grip on his wrist stopped him.  
  
"Vader…" It was Luke's voice, weak but urgent.  
  
"What is it?" he asked, bending down to listen.  
  
"Obi-wan… says… we need to go… to Dagobah… meet Yoda…"  
  
That was all he managed to say before he was whisked away to the med center.  
  
Vader stood a moment, dumbfounded. Yoda! Another familiar name. But where the stang was Dagobah? And what was Obi-wan doing in the middle of all this mess? 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4  
  
Luke was beginning to wonder if fighting was the only form of communication that existed between Han and Leia.  
  
Granted, an unspoken truce had existed between them while he'd been marinating in the bacta tank, according to Vader. But minutes after he'd awakened and accepted ecstatic hugs from all his friends, a seeming verbal free-for-all had erupted, ending with Leia giving Luke an angry kiss on the lips and stomping out of the med center.  
  
Han stared after the princess in shock. Luke felt much the same way. Chewie gave a low whuffing laugh while Vader snorted metallically as he struggled to suppress his own laughter.  
  
"Laugh it up, Hairball and Metalface," grumped Han, standing. "Take care of yourself," he advised Luke brusquely as he left.  
  
Chewie made a comment and followed after Han.  
  
"What'd he say?" Luke asked.  
  
"'Humans and their complicated mating games,'" Vader translated. "Which was my sentiment exactly. Why don't they just kiss and admit they're crazy about each other?"  
  
"Because that would be too easy," Luke replied. "They're both fighters. They're used to taking the hard way on everything worthwhile, even a romance."  
  
"Now that we're alone," Vader went on in a lower voice, "I wanted to ask you about what you told me back in the hangar yesterday."  
  
"What I told you?" Luke repeated. He remembered very little of actually coming into the base. Which was understandable, seeing as he'd been knocked out, mauled, and frozen at the time.  
  
"Yes," Vader replied. "About Obi-wan… and someone called Yoda?"  
  
"Oh, that." He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Obi-wan appeared to me out in the storm."  
  
"He did?" Vader cocked his head, intrigued. "He's spoken to me, but never appeared."  
  
"I guess this message was important enough to warrant an actual visit," Luke theorized. "He wants us both to go to someplace called Dagobah and learn from a Jedi named Yoda."  
  
Vader was silent a moment – oddly pensive, in fact. When Luke glanced over at him, he was staring at a blank spot on the wall.  
  
"Name strike a chord?" asked Luke.  
  
Vader took awhile to reply. "Not that. It's… something else."  
  
"You can tell me," Luke encouraged.  
  
"While Han and I were searching for you… I ran into the wampa you faced."  
  
Luke sat up, startled. "Go on."  
  
He hesitated, then pressed on. "I shot at it a few times and tried to escape… but it attacked and wounded me." His fists clenched as if he was struggling to cling to the words, to keep them from escaping his lips. "I… don't know what happened. Something… I don't know how to describe it… something awoke. Something evil. Something painful. Something I couldn't stop."  
  
Luke felt the blood drain from his face.  
  
"The next thing I knew… the wampa was on the floor… choking. I couldn't stop it… and I remembered… I remembered killing another… an Imperial…" His voice broke.  
  
A knot of terror balled up in Luke's stomach. Vader was using the dark side of the Force again – and recovering memories of his more recent life, his life as a servant of the Emperor. Was the Alliance's original fear concerning the man finally coming true? Would he soon regain his entire memory and turn on the Rebellion?  
  
But Vader was obviously as deeply shaken by what had happened as Luke was. The knot in his stomach eased. If Vader could recognize his actions as wrong and attempt to correct them, there was probably little danger of him reverting back to that lifestyle.  
  
"I'm sorry," Luke told him gently.  
  
"I'm scared, Luke," Vader confessed. "Scared to my bones. If I lose control again… if I hurt someone else, a sentient this time…"  
  
"You won't." Luke reached out and squeezed his hand. "I'll be here to help you. And so will Han and the Rogues."  
  
"But what of this Yoda, whoever he is? What if he decides I'm unfit to be trained because of my actions in the cave?"  
  
"I can't believe that any Jedi is above getting angry and losing control," Luke shot back. "If Yoda turns you down, I'll have some words with him. And I'm sure Obi-wan will say his piece."  
  
"He usually does," Vader replied, a little less moody.  
  
Forenze paused on her way past Luke's bed, wielding a hypospray like a vibrostaff. "You're cleared to go anytime, Skywalker. And Vader, I want you to stay, if you can. We'll start your lung operation this afternoon." She was gone before they could reply, running toward a swearing mechanic in the next room.  
  
Vader extended a hand to help Luke up. "Thank you, Luke. Your optimism is the best medicine for a troubled soul."  
  
"I dunno," Luke replied teasingly as he got to his feet. "Forenze's cynicism can do its own wonders."  
  
"And just what is that supposed to mean?"  
  
He gave Vader a sly grin. "You tease Han about having a relationship with someone out of his league, but I've heard you and Forenze flirt…"  
  
"She doesn't flirt, she snaps," Vader defended. "We're friends, nothing more or less. Besides, we're not even the same species."  
  
Ar'ya entered the room, a grave look on her face. "Luke, Darth, Riekkan wants all Rogues in the control room now," she reported.  
  
"What's wrong?" asked Luke.  
  
"He isn't saying. But Han and Chewie went out to investigate something strange." Her lekku rippled in a gesture of nervousness. "Whatever it is, I have a bad feeling about it."  
  
Vader gave a theatrical groan of exasperation. "I guess my lung operation gets put off again."  
  
The ranks of Rogue Squadron had grown since the Second Battle of Yavin. Then there had been a paltry dozen pilots. Now nearly forty Rogues, representing over twenty species and various social castes and geographical areas of the galaxy, packed the control room. Luke had to squeeze himself between a grumbling Wedge and a somewhat groggy Quarren to get to General Riekkan.  
  
"What have we got so far?" he asked the General.  
  
"All we know is that whatever's approaching the base is metal," Reikkan replied. "We suspect it's a droid of some kind. And See Threepio tells us it's using a code he's not familiar with."  
  
"Play the recording," advised Leia, appearing next to Luke.  
  
Riekkan touched a button, and a garbled electronic noise buzzed from the computer. It sounded like a nasal, monotone voice endlessly repeating "Man the defender, defender of space" into a badly wired amplifier.  
  
"Weird," muttered Luke.  
  
"Not a code any Alliance droid uses," Vader added gravely.  
  
Han's voice broke over the comm. "Solo here. Found whatever it was."  
  
"Can you identify it?" asked Riekkan.  
  
"Not really. It kind of went all to pieces when it saw us."  
  
"It must have had some sort of self-destruct mechanism," Luke suggested.  
  
"An Imperial probe droid," Leia murmured.  
  
No one argued with her. What droid aside from a spy droid would be programmed to destroy itself upon discovery?  
  
"There's a good chance the Empire knows we're here," Han said balefully.  
  
"We'd better evacuate Echo Base," Riekkan announced. He spun around to face Rogue Squadron. "We need Rogue Squadron's help to see the Alliance to safety. Can we count on you, Rogues?"  
  
"Yes sir!" Luke replied faithfully.  
  
"We're with you, General," Vader added.  
  
The squadron roared assent.  
  
"Then to your ships!"  
  
-------  
  
Vader strapped himself into his snowspeeder. "Set to go, Drache?"  
  
"Ready if you are, Commander," his gunner replied in her oddly inflected Basic. Drache was a Neimodian noblewoman who had renounced her post in the Trade Federation years ago. A throwback to her species warrior past, she had loathed the cowardly, backstabbing ways of her brethren and sought adventure and a loyal cause in the Alliance. Frankly, Vader couldn't have asked for a better comrade.  
  
"Good to hear that," he replied with a smile.  
  
"I feel like I can take on the whole Empire myself today!" one of the younger pilots, Dack, gushed.  
  
"I know the feeling," Luke replied. "But don't get too cocky."  
  
Rogue Squadron had divided itself into two factions – Blue Group, which would fly X-wings to escort transports safely out of the system, and White Group, which would use snowspeeders to hold off any possible ground attack. The base's powerful shields and ion cannon would ensure protection from an airborne attack.  
  
A voice crackled over Vader's comm.  
  
"Rogue Squadron, heads up! Imperial walkers advancing on Echo Base!"  
  
Walkers! Vader swore under his breath. The Empire had certainly acted fast on their information. And by unleashing their heavy artillery this early in the game, they were sending a clear message of doom to the Alliance.  
  
"Attention, Rogues," Luke ordered. "Let's not try anything stupid out there. Our goal is to draw their fire until the base is cleared, not get ourselves killed."  
  
The speeders rocketed out the hangar door and tore across the glistening snowscape. In the distance, the towering behemoths of AT-ATs plodded forward, military machinery of the deadliest ground form. Emerald light streaked from guns that jutted from their cockpits like tusks, causing ice and snow to fountain around the speeders.  
  
Janson was the first to fire, but his garnet blasts glanced off the nearest walker's side.  
  
"That armor's too thick for blasters!" he shouted.  
  
"Go for the legs," advised Luke. "Use your harpoon guns. We'll try tangling them up."  
  
The mechanical "head" of one of the iron monsters filled Vader's viewscreen. The sight of the walker stirred another memory…  
  
…"Target acquired, my lord," the AT-AT pilot informed him.  
  
"Fire at will," he thundered.  
  
The city erupted into flames, immolating thousands of Rebel traitors and, with them, the Jedi Knight Aayla Secura. Months of searching had finally culminated in a strike…  
  
He shook his head. Not now! He didn't need this! But he couldn't help but wonder – just how many Rebels had died at his hand?  
  
An explosion jolted him back to reality. Hobbie's speeder had burst apart in a welter of flame, taking Dekham, his gunner, with him.  
  
"Stang," Vader hissed, and he brought his speeder around to circle the walker that had downed the two Rogues. "Drache, get a lock on that junk pile's leg."  
  
"Got it!"  
  
"Fire harpoon!"  
  
"It's away!"  
  
The harpoon buried itself in the AT-AT's "knee" joint. Vader circled the vehicle closely, carefully counting the passes around those thick steel legs.  
  
"Detach cable!" he barked.  
  
With a loud clang they pulled away, turning just in time to see the gargantuan hulk topple forward and slam into the snow.  
  
"Good shot, Drache," Wedge commended.  
  
"Everyone follow their lead," Luke ordered. "Let's hold them off as long as we can!"  
  
-----  
  
Darth Kain watched the walker to his right collapse. He ground his teeth. Fools! AT-ATs were far superior to these flimsy speeders. How could his men be so clumsy as to fall prey to them?  
  
He sat behind the weaponry controls of one of the war machines, at the head of the attacking Imperial forces. Though he hated Lord Vader with a passion, he had taken a page from the cyborg's book – he actually fought alongside his men. Not only did it ensure victory, it instilled respect in his troops.  
  
The Force pulsed strongly in two of the speeders. He mentally brushed the minds of both pilots. One burned bright and clear; the other was shrouded in darkness, though a barrier kept the blackness from penetrating his core. With a feral smile he locked his sights on the first. Once he shot the Skywalkers down, snowtroopers would be sent to pick them up… then they'd be his.  
  
He had no desire to see the Skywalkers join the Sith cause. He carried out his master's command to capture them out of obedience, but he detested it the whole way. But on the other hand… if one of them happened to meet a mishap before reaching the Emperor, there'd be one less Skywalker to deal with and no one would be the wiser.  
  
He fired, bringing Luke's speeder down. Then he aimed for Vader.  
  
--------  
  
The crash jarred every bone in Luke's body as clumps of rock-hard snow went airborne and clattered over his speeder's canopy. He gritted his teeth as the ship lurched to a halt.  
  
"Luke, you okay?" Wedge shouted over the comm.  
  
"I'm good," he replied. He looked back to check on Dack, then groaned when he saw the young gunner's head slumped over, a trickle of blood striping his jawline. "But Dack's dead."  
  
A sky-rending explosion shook the grounded craft.  
  
"What was that?" he demanded.  
  
"They've destroyed the shield generator!" Mela replied.  
  
Luke popped the canopy and scrambled free of his fallen ship. On the horizon a plume of oily black smoke marked the ruined generator like a tombstone. Two transports shrieked away from the smoke column, making for space – and safety.  
  
Vader's voice echoed over his helmet comm. "Let's concentrate on getting back to our ships in one piece now. The base is a loss, and all transports should be out by now."  
  
"Someone pick up Luke!" Wedge shouted.  
  
"I'm fine," Luke told him. "I can walk. Meet you back at the hangars."  
  
A blast tore through the bitingly-cold air.  
  
"I'm hit!" Vader exclaimed.  
  
Luke watched in terror as Vader's speeder spiraled toward the ground. White sprays of snow marked its path as it skidded to a halt not five meters from him. To Luke's intense relief, the canopy opened almost instantly, and Vader and Drache emerged unscathed.  
  
"I suppose we walk from here," Luke remarked.  
  
"Not likely," Vader replied, drawing his blaster. "Behind you, quick!"  
  
The AT-AT that had shot both Luke and Vader down had come to a dead stop, kneeling like an obedient beast of burden. A door on its back slid open, and snowtroopers poured out, firing.  
  
Luke didn't stop to think. He drew his lightsaber, swinging it in an instinct-driven pattern that he'd never used before. It was as if someone else had grabbed the saber and was directing his movements, with him just hanging on for dear life. But at any rate, it was proving effective – the whirling saber was acting as a shield, much as it had when he'd battled Obi-wan's training remote.  
  
But those had been stun blasts. These bolts would be deadly if they connected.  
  
Vader and Drache exchanged fire with the troopers. Three fell immediately, but for every one they neutralized four more took his place. It was clear they were outnumbered and in deep trouble.  
  
Luke delved deep into his mind, then extended a call across the snowscape. It was a considerable gamble… would they come?  
  
He didn't have long to wonder. Eerie, ululating howls drowned out the sounds of battle, and the snowtroopers stopped firing on the Rebels and redirected their shots toward the towering wampas that came charging through he snow at them. Luke, Vader, and Drache wisely dove for cover inside Vader's wrecked speeder as a new war erupted between Hoth's native beasts and the Imperial intruders.  
  
"I had no idea the wampas were sympathetic to the Rebellion's cause," Vader noted dryly.  
  
"They couldn't care less about us," Luke replied. "Their primary concerns are food, reproduction, and defending their territory. I just let out a call informing them there was an easy source of prey on their turf."  
  
"You used the Force?" Drache asked, impressed.  
  
"Rather ingenious," Vader noted as the one-armed wampa shuffled past their hiding place, a screaming trooper thrown over its shoulder.  
  
"Let's head for the hangars while they're distracted," Luke ordered.  
  
Quietly they left the speeder and ran to the X-wing hangar, set a small distance from the rest of the base for protection. He felt horrible about leaving Dack behind, but their time was limited. At least the blizzards would see to it that he got a burial.  
  
-------  
  
"Imperial troops have entered the base!" a guard barked over the comm. "Imperial troops have entered the…" His message terminated in an ominous burst of static.  
  
Those remaining in Echo Base to supervise the battle and erase the main computers abandoned their posts, making for the last transport. Leia found herself in the rear of the pack, accompanied by an unusually concerned Han and Chewie.  
  
An explosion rocked the tunnel, and Leia threw up her arms in defense as white dust obscured her vision. Han grabbed her and pulled her back, and Chewie wrapped protective arms around her.  
  
When the air cleared, Han swore violently. The tunnel was completely blocked with rubble and machinery.  
  
"Solo here," he barked into his personal comm. "We've run into a problem. I'm taking Her Highness aboard the Falcon."  
  
Before Leia could protest, Han grabbed her hand and ran toward the hangars.  
  
-------  
  
Kain swooped through the halls of the base, his senses heightened to their fullest capacity. Crumbled ice and splintered machinery littered the floors, and every chamber was strewn with guns, clothing, food canisters, and anything else that couldn't be packed in five minutes. They had taken the Rebels by surprise, at least, and even managed to destroy roughly a third of their forces.  
  
But that gave Kain no satisfaction. For the Skywalkers had escaped his grasp again.  
  
Two snowtroopers were bickering in a side passage, each laying claim to some spoil or other gained in the attack. Kain ended the argument and vented some of his frustration by blasting the ceiling over their heads with the dark side, collapsing the tunnel onto their thick skulls. Satisfied that they would irritate him no longer, he moved on.  
  
A welcome whisper in the Force brought him to a halt as an angry voice rang through the corridor.  
  
"Watch the hands, you sick lout! Show some respect to a lady!"  
  
A squadron of troopers hauled a furious Fosh before him. Under a furred parka he caught a glimpse of a white uniform – a medical officer, by the look of it. She glowered at Kain and aimed her heel at the toe of his boot, hissing a foul name at him.  
  
"We found this one behind a blocked passage," General Veers told him, beaming gloatingly.  
  
Kain ignored him. He faced the med officer and plunged into her mind, seeking information.  
  
A hasty barrier surfaced – she had some Force sensitivity, surprisingly, but not enough to harbor any significant power besides an innate empathy. He ripped apart her shields almost effortlessly and delved deeper. Past the surface memories and basic information, he came upon something extremely promising – she was a friend of Vader, and she knew of others who were close to both Skywalkers.  
  
The doctor sagged, the mind probe's shattering pain rendering her unconscious. Kain motioned for the troops to take her away.  
  
"Sir?" asked Veers.  
  
"Doctor Vlask Forenze will be a guest aboard the Executor for the time being," Kain replied.  
  
"What of the Rebels?"  
  
"Chaos take the Rebels," Kain hissed. "The Millennium Falcon. I want that ship!" 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5  
  
A pair of starfighters – a battle-scarred X-wing and a glossy red N-1 – glided serenely across the blackness of space. Light years away from the rest of the Rebel fleet, Luke and Vader traveled silently toward an obscure world, toward the next great journey of their lives. Neither one of them spoke. Several times Luke had tried to initiate conversation, but each time he'd found himself gagged with nervous anticipation.  
  
At last Vader broke the silence for him. "Luke?"  
  
"Mm-hm?"  
  
"If Yoda refuses to train me… what then?"  
  
Luke pondered that a moment. "Then," he replied, "I suppose you go back to the rendezvous and lead the Rogues."  
  
"That's very comforting, Luke," Vader told him sarcastically.  
  
"I'm sorry I don't have a better answer, Darth, but I can't think of anything else. And don't be such a pessimist. Obi-wan wouldn't have sent us to Yoda if Yoda didn't want to train us."  
  
"True." A pause. "Forgive me. I'm just a bit anxious, I suppose."  
  
"Yeah. So am I."  
  
"I hope Han and Chewie made it out of Echo Base okay."  
  
"Yeah. Me too. And Leia."  
  
Vader chuckled. "Wouldn't it be something if they ended up on the same transport?"  
  
"Ooooooh!" groaned Luke. "The poodoo would hit the fan!"  
  
Artoo warbled from the X-wing's droid socket, and his reply scrolled across Luke's readout screen.  
  
"I'm sure Threepio's perfectly all right," Luke assured him.  
  
"Not in his mind, though," Vader replied with a laugh. "I still can't believe that droid ended up in the base."  
  
Luke nodded. It had quite surprised him to know that Vader had been somehow connected with Threepio, but he was okay with it now. The droid had no control over who his maker was.  
  
"That reminds me," Vader added. "I get Artoo on the ride back."  
  
"Okay, deal," Luke chuckled. "I'll take the rust bucket."  
  
"Hey, Artoo's the best astromech in the Rebellion," Vader retorted. "Rusty up here's about as useful as a barrel of reactor waste."  
  
Vader's onboard R4 unit gave a low drone, either too lazy to fire off a retort or too addled to understand the insult.  
  
At last the pale green light of Dagobah filled their fighter's cockpits. Luke couldn't help giving a triumphant whoop as they swooped toward the planet's atmosphere.  
  
"No cities or technology readings," Vader told him.  
  
"Massive life-form readings though," Luke replied. "There's something down there…"  
  
A swirl of the Force brushed their minds at that moment. Each of them flinched involuntarily at the alien contact, then relaxed as it withdrew, obviously satisfied with what it found.  
  
"What was that?" Luke wondered.  
  
"My guess would be Yoda," Vader replied. "Remember, the Empire exterminated the Jedi and hunts them still. I'm sure he's learned to be cautious."  
  
Their fighters were soon engulfed in a gray miasma of mist. Luke could see nothing through the fog. The excessive moisture in the air rendered his sensors useless. Trusting his instincts, he continued his descent.  
  
Tree limbs rattled against his fighter's hull. The ship bucked, thudded over something particularly large, and squelched to a very messy and wet landing. Water tinted a sludgy green-brown with algae, sediment, and stars-knew-what-else sprayed over his canopy.  
  
Artoo gave a very vocal, very explicit description of his opinion of this place.  
  
"Can't argue with you," Luke replied, opening his X-wing's canopy.  
  
What he saw didn't exactly cheer him. His X-wing lay jammed at a very awkward angle in the muck of a swamp that stretched almost as far as he could see – which, granted, wasn't very far due to the trees crowded around him like gawking spectators and the clumps of mist floating over the water. Patches of muddy soil rose slightly above the bog to make the only dry land visible. A persistent drone of insects and chattering animals overlaid any other sound, and the smell of rotting vegetation and fresh rain filled the damp air.  
  
A riot of bird cries burst over his head, and he looked up to see the Desert Angel blunder through the treetops. It smashed partway through a gap between two giant moss-garlanded trees and stuck there. The racket of Vader's "landing" was enough to silence most animal noise for the time being.  
  
"Vader!" Luke shouted.  
  
"I'm fine," Vader replied, sliding open the Angel's canopy. "Somehow I get the feeling this isn't the first time I've parked in a tree.  
  
Luke broke into a grin. "I found your TIE in a tree back at Yavin, actually."  
  
"Hmm. Must be an omen." He dropped down from the fighter and promptly sank up to his knees in the scum-crusted mud. "Every time I get tree-bound, something monumental happens to me."  
  
"Hopefully it's a good omen."  
  
Vader chuckled. "We could use all the good omens we can get."  
  
Artoo wrangled his way out of the X-wing and promptly fell into the water. Luke was about to leap in after the droid when a photoreceptor popped above the surface like a periscope.  
  
"You be more careful," Luke admonished him.  
  
"He just wants to explore," Vader replied, sympathetic toward Artoo. "Wish I could say the same about Rusty. He shut down the minute I turned off the engine."  
  
"I'm glad Rusty's not the adventurous type," Luke countered. "He wouldn't have survived falling out of your ship. And I have to have him on the trip back."  
  
Vader bent down and set to digging his legs out of the mud. Artoo began to wheel about under the water, tootling merrily. Luke jumped down from the X-wing and landed on a slimy but solid-looking patch of earth.  
  
A patch of earth that lurched under his feet and slithered away, throwing him into the water.  
  
"Luke!" exclaimed Vader.  
  
His head broke the surface, and he struggled to get to his feet, but froze when a scaly, sinuous body brushed past him. The beast's long plated back emerged, glistening dark green and crisscrossed with gray scars. A set of thin but powerful jaws opened with a wet hiss, revealing glistening needle-like teeth as long as his outstretched hand.  
  
As the monster lunged at him, he kicked its belly. It gave a gurgling whine and veered away, only to return for another attempt.  
  
The water near Luke's feet boiled and steamed as a blaster bolt plunged into its depths. Luke yelped and scrambled backward. Vader's second shot, thankfully, went true, striking the creature's back. It shrieked painfully and dove, vanishing into the murky water.  
  
Luke managed to claw his way to the dry island where Vader stood, and his friend hauled him onto the ground. Neither of them had any desire to enter the water with a wounded, irritated, hungry whatever-it-was at large.  
  
"Haven't been here ten minutes and we've already angered the natives," Luke noted.  
  
"It's not the natives I'm particularly worried about," Vader replied. "It's finding Yoda. He could be hiding anywhere on this world."  
  
"It shouldn't be too hard," said Luke, shaking water out of his blaster. "How many Jedi could be on this mudball?"  
  
Vader looked over Luke's shoulder. "Uh-oh."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I think I just found Yoda."  
  
Luke turned – and groaned.  
  
On a rise of dry ground behind Luke's sunken X-wing stood a tiny mud-and-wood hut, smoke curling from a makeshift chimney and a welcoming orange light glowing in its windows and doorway. A large section of its roof had been ripped away – and that corresponding section lay in the slime near the X-wing's starboard S-foil.  
  
"So that's what I hit," he moaned.  
  
"Maybe we can fix it before he gets back," Vader replied.  
  
"Stang, that house is so small!" Luke exclaimed. "Is Yoda a Jawa Jedi or something?"  
  
"Size matters not," a gravelly voice warbled behind them.  
  
They whirled.  
  
The speaker looked up at them with a critical eye, leaning upon a gimer-stick cane and carrying a leather sack of herbs and roots over one shoulder. Like Obi-wan, he was garbed in worn tan robes that left only his head and hands exposed. Unlike Obi-wan, the crown of his head just barely came level with Vader's knees, and his skin was wrinkled and a pale green. His hands were clawed and four-fingered, and a wide oval face with rather squashed features was framed by a pair of enormous triangular ears. A faint halo of wispy white hair crowned his domed head, and deep green eyes gazed up at them, empty of any readable expression.  
  
"I know you," Vader said quietly.  
  
Amusement flickered in the being's eyes. "Ah, forgot me you have not, then."  
  
"You're Yoda, I assume?" Luke asked.  
  
"Dangerous it can be to assume, young Skywalker," the tiny alien remarked. "Like assuming a hungry dragonsnake dry land is."  
  
Luke winced. He'd seen that?  
  
"Or assuming what one is told his past is the truth is," he went on, gazing at Vader now.  
  
"I don't understand," Vader replied softly, and Luke was sure he wasn't simply referring to Yoda's odd inverted way of expressing himself.  
  
Yoda shook his head. "Come." He hobbled, not in the direction of his damaged hut, but deeper into the swamps. Puzzled, they followed.  
  
Apparently Yoda had been anticipating their arrival for some time. A wide clearing, large enough to park the Falcon in with room to spare, had been made in the swamp by clearing away trees and undergrowth. Dry land that filled the clearing had been formed by packing earth and stones together into an artificial island. Stones, wooden poles, crates, and other paraphernalia had been stacked neatly at one end of the meadow, while a dozen training remotes and four simple lightsabers sat on a makeshift rack at the other. Lines had been drawn on the ground to mark different training and fencing arenas.  
  
Vader gave a low whistle. "You're certainly well-prepared."  
  
"Indeed." Yoda lifted a hand and pointed at them. "But prepared are you for the training?"  
  
"Of course!" Luke replied. "We're ready!"  
  
Yoda gave him that critical look again. "So certain are you? When exposed to the dark side you both have been? Remember the wampa on Hoth, Vader? And Luke, remember Yavin, when nearly killed Vader in your anger you did?"  
  
Luke and Vader exchanged bewildered looks.  
  
Yoda stared into the sky, where the clouds had cleared just enough to reveal a scattering of bright stars. His countenance was suddenly so sad, so wistful, that Luke could finally appreciate that this… man was a Jedi, a member of a now-despised order. And he'd had friends in that order, comrades, teachers and students, a home and a cause to fight for.  
  
"Eight hundred years have I trained Jedi," Yoda went on quietly, making Luke's eyes widen in awe. "Traveled and seen much I have. Watched my Padawan turn to the dark side I did. Witnessed the bloody beginning of the Clone Wars I did. Watched I did as decay and fall the Republic did. Watched I did as fall and betray the Order a young, reckless Jedi Knight did." Vader cringed, but thankfully Yoda said no more on that subject. "Gone are my apprentices and their apprentices. Gone is the Jedi Temple that for hundreds of years stood on Corusant. Gone is our Order, our fire in the universe." His head lowered as he silently grieved. "The last of the Jedi I am."  
  
Luke stepped forward. "That's why we're here, Yoda. We're here to give the Order a second chance at life. We want to be Jedi."  
  
Yoda turned back to Luke.  
  
"A Jedi of the most serious mind must be. To put aside his personal desires he must learn. Focused he must be, dedicated, calm." He suddenly lifted his cane and whacked Luke's shin with it, making him leap back. "Long time have I watched you two. Always are your minds on the horizon and not on where you are, on what you are doing!"  
  
Luke winced at the pain in his legs. The last thing he had expected in coming to Dagobah was a dressing down by a Jedi Master he could have picked up one-handed.  
  
"We aren't perfect, Master Yoda," Vader replied. "But we are willing to learn and change."  
  
Yoda made a high snort of sound somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. "Much more than the will is needed," he replied, "but a start it is. Trained you both will be." He gave Luke an unexpected smile. "Like your mother you are, Skywalker."  
  
Luke's jaw dropped. "You knew my mother?"  
  
"Nine hundred years old I am," he replied. "Knew many of your forefathers I did." He nodded back in the direction of his hut. "Much to learn the two of you have. Get started we had better."  
  
"Thank you, Master Yoda," Vader told him gratefully.  
  
"First things first," Yoda replied. "Fix the hole in my roof you will. Then eat we shall. Good food. Come now, Padawans."  
  
--------  
  
Kain and the Emperor watched impassively as two stormtroopers dragged away the corpse of the detention block officer. The idiot had allowed Forenze to escape. Though she'd been recaptured and detained in a more secure location, they couldn't allow a similar mistake to be made again.  
  
"The Rebel put two men in the bacta tanks before they subdued her," Kain snarled.  
  
"That's why you never want to cross a medic, my apprentice," Palpatine replied with an amused smile. "She knows exactly where to hit you to do the most damage."  
  
Kain nodded. Forenze was certainly proof of that.  
  
"Quite providential of you to come across her," he went on. "She knows Vader, you say?"  
  
"She is quite close to him," Kain replied. "And he to her."  
  
"The Skywalkers' weaknesses are in their friends. They would go so far as to die to protect them." He shook his head as if he couldn't comprehend this fact. "And they are becoming more attuned to the Force. It will not be long before they are able to sense their friends' emotions even across the depths of space."  
  
Kain smiled. "I think I understand the plan, master. Shall I begin on the doctor?"  
  
"No. Acquire the Falcon first. We'll need the princess and the smugglers." He grinned in sadistic anticipation. "Once the bait is ready, we'll begin."  
  
-------  
  
Days passed.  
  
As the Rebel fleet regrouped and resupplied itself near Chandrila, as the Millennium Falcon engaged in a madcap flight with the Executor in fevered pursuit, as wars and uprisings raged throughout the known galaxy, on a distant swamp world a quieter but far more pivotal battle against evil was being waged as two Padawans took their first steps into a larger world.  
  
Vader found much of the training oddly familiar, as if he'd received these lessons before and only needed a reminder to recall them fully. It made sense, though. He'd been a Jedi once; he'd known all this at one time.  
  
He somersaulted over a fallen tree, landing on a scrabble of boulders. He jogged forward and grabbed a thick branch, pulling himself into a tree. His chest heaved as his mask worked overtime to compensate for the exertion. Yoda was a strict teacher, but he was by no means cruel, and he'd carefully planned these exercises with Vader's handicap in mind.  
  
Luke's footsteps squelched through a damp area nearby. As if to make up for not having a physical weakness, Luke usually did his morning routines with Yoda strapped to his back. In Vader's mind, that made the two of them fairly equal.  
  
He ran along the length of the branch, sprang from its edge, flipped through the air… and landed in a not-so-graceful heap in the mud.  
  
"Smooth landing."  
  
Vader lifted his head from the soft ground and glared at Luke. "Beautiful timing."  
  
Yoda laughed. "Out of the mud, Vader. No more exercises today."  
  
Luke lowered Yoda to the ground and bent to help Vader to his feet. "You okay?"  
  
"Bruised pride, but nothing else," he replied.  
  
They made their way back to the training ground, where the usual array of items had been laid out for the levitation exercises. Luke and Vader spent the better part of two hours following Yoda's instructions, learning to direct the flow of the Force and manipulate the objects in the requested manner. This was actually one of the simpler lessons, though the one with the most surprises as well.  
  
Once they were sure Luke would receive no lasting damage from the rock to his head, they moved on to fencing. Luke used his father's saber, while Vader was stuck with a white-bladed training saber that had obviously seen better days. Yoda stood by, coaching the two of them and occasionally halting the mock fight to correct a defensive stance or demonstrate a new drill with his own weapon.  
  
The sheer volume of information Yoda expected them to absorb was staggering. Levitation, battle skills, martial arts, suggestion, memory alteration, telepathy, meditation in the living and unifying Forces… and those were merely the Force aspects of their training. A competent Jedi also knew several languages, basic first aid, galactic politics, the history and philosophy of the Jedi, military leadership, negotiation, arbitration, and much more. Vader wasn't about to complain, but the task of becoming a Knight seemed so daunting at times!  
  
It was full dark by the time Yoda declared the day done. He retreated to his hut while Luke took the opportunity to clean off the day's grime in a deep pool that Yoda had cleared as free of animal life. Vader, meanwhile, set to work cleaning the X-wing, which Yoda had extracted from the swamp in an impressive display of Force-wielding during one of their levitation lessons.  
  
"You're right, Luke," Vader teased, extracting a snake from the engine. "You really used to be a moisture farmer."  
  
"Why do you say that?" asked Luke, standing waist-deep in the water.  
  
"You have the worst farmer's tan I've ever seen."  
  
Luke glared back. "You try living on a double-sunned world and seeing if you don't come back baked."  
  
"Baked or half-baked?" Vader retorted jokingly.  
  
Luke scooped a fistful of sludge from the bottom of the pool and flung it at him.  
  
"Hey!" he shouted, retorting by flinging the snake into the pool near Luke.  
  
Luke responded by falling backward into the water as he slipped trying to retreat from the reptile.  
  
"Enjoying yourselves?" asked Yoda, leaving his house at that moment and wearing an amused smile.  
  
"Just a diplomatic discussion, Master Yoda," Luke replied, surfacing with a grin.  
  
Yoda rolled his eyes in an exaggerated show of exasperation. "Promises me two mature men Obi-wan does and crashes on my planet what does? Two of the biggest younglings I've ever seen."  
  
Everyone laughed a moment.  
  
"Have something for Vader I do," Yoda went on. "Replace that old training saber it will."  
  
Vader pulled the weapon from his belt and handed it to Yoda. "Thank you, Master. I'm not sure this one will stand up to another fight."  
  
"Too bad you don't have your old saber," Luke replied. "I think the Rebellion still has it locked up somewhere."  
  
"And good riddance," Vader replied vehemently. "I won't touch that Sith weapon ever again."  
  
An expression Vader couldn't read crossed Yoda's face. But it passed quickly as he extended the new weapon toward him. He accepted it and ignited it, admiring the brilliant green blade.  
  
"It's beautiful," he breathed.  
  
"Once belonged to a Jedi Knight named Qui-gon Jinn it did," Yoda explained. "A cunning warrior he was. Compassionate he was, always seeking the good in everyone he met, the pure core." He smiled fondly. "A bit of a renegade he was, but never without due cause. Had great faith in you he did."  
  
Vader stared at the saber, suddenly flooded with guilt. This man had placed his trust in him… and he had broken it. How had Qui-gon reacted when he'd learned of Vader's fall to darkness?  
  
"I can't take this," he protested.  
  
"Keep it," Yoda ordered. "Wanted you to have it he did."  
  
Vader extinguished the weapon. "I wish I could remember him."  
  
"Someday you will," Yoda said kindly. "But for now, honor the man who once wielded that weapon by using it well." He nodded at Luke. "Sleep you both should. Need your strength for the morning you will."  
  
"Good night, Master," Luke bid him.  
  
"May the Force be with you," Vader added. 


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6  
  
"Bounty hunters," muttered a computer tech. "We don't need their scum."  
  
"Watch your mouth," Piett advised. "Kain was once a hunter, I'm sure you're aware."  
  
"I don't care about Kain," the tech snapped. "Hunter or not, he's scum all the same. Besides, he never kills techs."  
  
"There's a first time for everything," Piett replied balefully, remembering the detention block officer.  
  
Kain glided past, completely at ease with the motley collection of beings following him. Piett recognized a few of them – Bossk, the reptilian alien infamous for hunting down and exterminating escaped Wookie slaves; Dengar, the bio-mechanically enhanced, emotionless human with a mysterious hatred toward Corellians; IG-88, the weapon-laden assassin droid; Zuckuss and 4-LOM, the Gand-droid duo that had somehow never lost a hunt in their joined careers; and Aurra Sing, the slender, pale femme fatale and ex-Jedi.  
  
Then, of course, there were the lesser-knowns, seeing this as their chance to break into the business. A human woman garbed in battered stormtrooper armor stroked a sniper rifle like a beloved pet as she passed. A lanky gray Gungan with a scar down his throat and two blaster carbines and a supply of grenades on his belt spoke in low tones with a laser-cannon-wielding Rodian, no doubt negotiating a joint hunt. Three Dugs, each so laden with guns and knives that they clattered with every step they took, laughed and joked in raucous, drunken voices. A scarlet female Twi'lek gripped a meter-long vibro-sai as if she itched to use it, a human boy barely into his teens strolled by with so many blasters strapped to his arms and legs it was a wonder he could walk, and a Whiphid-Nautolan duo conversed in a coded language as they readied poison-dart guns for the hunt.  
  
Piett relaxed a touch as the last bounty hunter, a particularly vicious-looking Zabrak cyborg, vanished down the hallway. But that didn't last long.  
  
"Lord Kain wants you in the conference room," a stormtrooper reported.  
  
Piett paled. "Why me?"  
  
The trooper gave a shrug that plainly said "I don't make the news, I just report it."  
  
Wincing, the Admiral followed the hunters into the chamber. The criminal refuse were all sitting around the gleaming black conference table in a twisted parody of a meeting of the Grand Moffs. One of the Dugs had promptly engaged in a screaming match with the Rodian, the human boy was brazenly hitting on the trooper-woman (who was growing more disgusted by the second), Bossk was picking his teeth with a vibroblade while the Zabrak used his to carve at the zekkwood table… in short, it was total bedlam.  
  
Then again, he supposed it wasn't THAT different from a meeting of the Moffs. Especially when said meetings were held directly after a heavy banquet. His mouth quirked in a grin as he recalled the night over three years ago when Madam Grand Admiral Olie had decked Grand Moff Tarkin after he'd overindulged on Bakuran wine and lewdly propositioned her.  
  
"I will have your attention," Kain grated.  
  
No one paid him any mind. Only the human went silent, and even then not of his own accord. The trooper, finally fed up with his advances, had planted a force-shivv between his shoulder blades. Not that such an occurrence was unusual in this room – especially when a Sith was in attendance.  
  
Kain, having lived among slime like this for years, spoke their language. He yanked a blaster from the Nautolan's shoulder holster and fired once into the air. The noise eventually tapered off.  
  
"Better," he rasped. "Now to business."  
  
"What's the matter, Fett?" demanded Aurra. "Too high and mighty to hunt for yourself now?"  
  
"That will be Darth Kain to you," he snarled.  
  
"She's right," the Twi'lek replied. "You were once one of us – the best of us, in fact. Why not catch whatever fugitive you're chasing yourself?"  
  
Piett listened, curious. This was entirely unlike a bounty hunter. Why would they try to talk him out of hiring one of them and lose potential credits?  
  
Kain ignored the question. "There will be a substantial reward for the capture of the Millennium Falcon and its passengers Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, and Chewbacca. You are free to use any means necessary, but I want the alive. No skinning them as you're so fond of doing, Bossk."  
  
The Trandoshan humphed but didn't complain.  
  
"Go," he said in dismissal.  
  
A few hunters obeyed instantly, heading for their ships. Others stayed behind to negotiate last-minute partnerships, peruse information on hand-held computers, or continue arguments. Two stormtroopers hauled away the dead human. Piett waited a few minutes to be sure his presence would not be required.  
  
"Admiral."  
  
"Yes, my lord?"  
  
"See to it that these beings receive whatever it is they need to fulfill their tasks. Credits, weapons, maps, provisions, personnel, whatever. Give them your head on a platter if you have to." He lowered his voice to a deadly whisper. "I will have the Falcon if it takes the entire Imperial fleet to catch it."  
  
"Y-yes, my lord."  
  
Kain nodded slowly and swept out.  
  
Piett shook his head. Kain was mad – ferociously intelligent, but mad nonetheless. Vader would never have resorted to this collection of freak show rejects, no matter how desperate the cause.  
  
"Howsa you like havin' Fett as yousa boss?"  
  
The Gungan stood beside him, looking distastefully in the direction Kain had taken.  
  
"He's definitely not Darth Vader," Piett replied, forcing a smile.  
  
The Gungan scowled. "The hunters no likin' Fett. Wesa no likin' da Sith. And when a hunter goes and becomes one…" He bared his teeth. "Datsa real low."  
  
Piett stared at the Gungan. He'd always thought of hunters as moral-less criminals, willing to kill and destroy to catch their quarry. To find that they had their own code of honor, however bizarre or seemingly meaningless, fractured all he'd once thought to be fact.  
  
Then again, Kain had certainly done plenty of that himself.  
  
He made his way toward the Dug trio, who were loudly insisting that their hunt somehow required two Twi'lek masseuse slaves and a case of Huttese whiskey.  
  
-------  
  
Luke completed his warm-up stretches and looked back at the lean-to, where Vader was packing up the sleeping pallets. He'd never been the type to camp out in the open, but there was no choice. Yoda's house would hardly hold Luke, let alone the two of them. At least the lean-to provided protection from the elements – such as the rainstorm that had been plaguing this part of the planet for the last forty-eight hours.  
  
"Ready?" asked Vader, ducking out of the shelter and into the steadily increasing rain.  
  
"Ready when Yoda is." Luke wiped his soaked hair back and glanced in the direction of the hut. "What's keeping him?"  
  
"Perhaps Obi-wan's having a chat with him," said Vader.  
  
"I have an idea," Luke suggested. "Let's go spar while we wait. Get some saber practice in."  
  
"In this weather?" demanded Vader, rainwater dripping from the edges of his domed helmet.  
  
"Why not? Kain's not going to hold off attacking us on account of rain."  
  
"Infallible logic, Luke."  
  
The ground of the training arena squished under their feet as they walked. Facing each other, they removed their sabers from their belts, saluted, and assumed battle stances. Rain hissed and spat against their blue and green blades.  
  
"Much better than a training weapon," Vader marveled, giving Qui-gon's weapon a few test swings.  
  
"I wonder if Qui-gon knew Obi-wan," Luke mused.  
  
"Wouldn't that be ironic?" Vader replied.  
  
Luke swung, his blade meeting Vader's with a resounding crack. Vader retaliated with a slash toward his legs, which he blocked with ease.  
  
Together they dueled, their moves following some innate choreography. The muddy ground made footwork tricky, but their swordsmanship was as polished as a well-rehearsed dance. Their gray-blue uniforms were soon soaked with both sweat and rain.  
  
Luke gave a little laugh of exhilaration as he lunged forward. Vader knocked the blow aside and struck. Blocking with ease, he began a complicated drill, which Vader parried swiftly. One strike, two, three…  
  
Then Vader inexplicably froze, weapon held uselessly to one side. Before Luke could stop himself, he'd slashed a long burning gash across his chest.  
  
"NO!"  
  
Vader fell to his knees with a grunt, dropping his saber and clutching his wound. Luke flung his weapon aside and kneeled in front of him, prying his hands away to inspect the damage.  
  
"Thank the Force it's not deep," Luke gasped. "I'm so sorry…"  
  
"It wasn't you," he groaned, struggling to his feet. "I… I suffered another flashback."  
  
"Oh stang, not again," Luke moaned.  
  
"I was fighting a Jedi," Vader went on. "He wielded a blue saber much like yours. I… I cut him in two." He looked away in anguish. "And I enjoyed it. Good stars, Luke, what kind of monster was I? And why?"  
  
Luke shook his head, not having an answer. Then he wondered. "The Jedi. What did he look like?"  
  
"Nothing like you," Vader replied quietly. "It wasn't your father, of that I'm sure. I think it was Obi-wan."  
  
The undergrowth rustled, and Yoda stepped onto the training ground, a sober look on his face.  
  
"What happened?" he asked quietly.  
  
"We were fighting – I mean dueling – I mean… sparring…" Luke stammered. "I hit him by mistake…"  
  
"A memory returned to me in the middle of the duel," Vader added. "The memory of killing a Jedi."  
  
Yoda nodded. "The further your training progresses, more memories it will trigger. Unavoidable it is." He pointed at Luke. "Into your ship go and your first-aid kit bring. Vader, stay here. Dressed your wound must be."  
  
Luke couldn't retrieve the item fast enough. Nor could he relax fully until Yoda had treated Vader's injury and declared him good as new.  
  
"But no more duels without my supervision," he admonished. "Next time your head it could be."  
  
They both winced. "Yes master," they replied at once.  
  
"No more training today," he continued. "Come, with me walk."  
  
They followed Yoda along a solid path through the forest. The journey was silent, but not oppressively so. A welcome peace settled over them as the rain tapered off to a light misting. Luke lost himself in the beauty of this wild planet, the dense foliage, the bright sense of life every plant and creature exuded.  
  
Yoda stopped and hauled himself onto a fallen log. Vader sat next to him and assumed a meditative trance. Luke began to sit next to Vader, but an eerie chill seized him. Something dark lurked in the corner of his awareness, drawing away light like a black hole.  
  
"What is it, Luke?" asked Vader.  
  
"I'm cold." It sounded like a stupid answer, but it was the only one he could think of.  
  
Yoda lifted his cane and pointed at a cave that opened up in the base of a tree. "In there. A domain of evil it is."  
  
"There's a Sith in there?" Luke asked.  
  
"No. Common are gatherings of the Force. Jedi Temples and sanctuaries abodes of light were. The Emperor and Kain's palaces places of darkness are. Gather in pools and springs like water the Force sometimes does."  
  
"Like the Sky Cave on Hoth," Vader realized.  
  
"Yes. A refuge of light and peace that was. But here darkness lives." He gazed at Luke. "In there you must go."  
  
Luke stared at Yoda. Was he crazy? "Why?"  
  
"Ask questions do not. Go."  
  
Luke stared into the cave, shivering. The darkness within beckoned, taunted, teased him, seductive and repulsive at the same time. What did Yoda want him to do in that wretched place? Defeat the dark side? Gripping his lightsaber, he stepped in.  
  
"Your weapon," Yoda warned. "Need it you won't."  
  
He stared disbelievingly at his Master, then continued in. Of course he would need his weapon! He wasn't stupid. If this was a lair of darkness, he'd need all the help he could get.  
  
Brushing through sheets of hanging moss and threads of spider silk, he plunged forward. The damp chill of the cave melted through his skin and settled like ice in his bones. The dry slither of scaly bodies whispered in his ears. Somewhere ahead, liquid trickled over stones, somehow reminding him of a bleeding wound.  
  
The crunch of a boot on stones startled him into igniting his lightsaber. His eyes widened in shock. Blue light illuminated a slick black helmet with a silver T-slit visor less than a meter in front of him.  
  
"At last we meet, Skywalker," Darth Kain snarled.  
  
"I won't ask how you found me," Luke retorted, forcing himself to remain calm.  
  
"You won't live long enough for it to matter," came the reply, and his saber hissed to life in a flare of bloody light.  
  
Their weapons clanged harshly as they dueled, the narrow passage making it difficult to maneuver. Kain quickly gained the upper hand, hacking at Luke's defenses. This was no training duel – Kain intended to kill him!  
  
He backed against something slimy like raw flesh. Terror flooded through him. That wall wasn't supposed to be here! He was trapped!  
  
Kain raised his saber to cleave Luke in two.  
  
At that instant he saw an opportunity. With his weapon held high, Kain was relatively defenseless at the moment. Luke could take him down! He drove his saber forward, piercing the jet-black breastplate and searing through the Sith's heart.  
  
Impossibly, Kain remained standing. His arms fell to his sides, his weapon retracting with a sucking hiss. As Luke watched, stunned, he reached up and pulled off his helmet.  
  
He bit back the urge to scream. He knew that face – he'd seen it enough times in a mirror.  
  
"Look well, Skywalker," the apparition bid him. "And learn."  
  
He jerked his saber back, still staring at this ghost of Kain that wore his face. Yet it was no longer wearing the modified Mandalorian armor. Instead, the ebony life-support suit Vader had once worn encased its body. The face, however, remained unchanged.  
  
Confused and frightened, Luke backed away – and realized the wall was gone. He looked back to make sure. The barrier had vanished, and welcome light beckoned from the cave's mouth.  
  
When he turned back to the ghost, it had disappeared also.  
  
-------  
  
Vader watched Luke disappear into the cavern. "What's Luke going to do in there?"  
  
"Face the dark side he must," Yoda replied, stirring at the mud with his cane. "Learn valuable lessons from it he can if careful he is."  
  
"Will you send me in there?"  
  
"No. Faced the dark side you already have."  
  
He turned to face the Jedi Master. "The wampa cave?"  
  
Yoda shook his head. "Twenty years have you served the dark side. Left scars it has, but a valuable lesson it has taught you."  
  
Vader snorted. "What good is a lesson I can't remember having been taught?"  
  
"Remember you will," Yoda replied. "Eventually."  
  
Vader stared at the ground. "I'm not sure I want to remember, Master. The memories that come to me are so painful. If I were to regain my memory totally, I'd go mad."  
  
"That is why slowly it returns to you. Comes it does when prepared you are. And tell you more I will when right the time is."  
  
He scraped a line in the mud with his heel. "Master?"  
  
"Hmmm?"  
  
"Can I ever repay what I did to the Order?"  
  
"Repaying you are now. Repay you do every day you train. And repay you will when teach Padawans of your own you do."  
  
"What Padawan's going to want an ex-Sith as a teacher?"  
  
"A warning of the dangers of the dark side you can impart upon your students, Vader." He smiled unexpectedly. "Right Luke is. Negative your attitude is. Focus on the good you should."  
  
He rolled his eyes. "If one more person tells me that, I'll scream."  
  
"Good. Learn something you might."  
  
Luke emerged from the cavern at that instant, eyes wide, limbs shaking.  
  
"Luke!" Vader exclaimed, standing. "Are you all right?"  
  
He nodded, gulping in air.  
  
"Learned something, have you?" inquired Yoda.  
  
"I… I think so," Luke replied.  
  
Yoda waited expectantly.  
  
Luke took a few deep breaths to calm down. "As Kain is now and Vader once was, so I could be if I'm not careful."  
  
Vader watched Yoda carefully. The aged Jedi seemed to ponder that reply awhile. Then he nodded in satisfaction.  
  
"Come, Padawans. Let's go home." 


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7  
  
Forenze glared up at the ceiling of her cell. "All right, Mr. Kain-Fett-whoever you are, I know you've got a holocam up there somewhere, and I know you're watching this! Why don't you just kill me or interrogate me or whatever it is you're gonna do and get it over with? 'Cause I'm tired of rotting in here!"  
  
She paced the length of the cell, muttering to herself. Aside from her lucky jailbreak three days ago, she had yet to see another living being. It seemed as if Kain was perfectly content with sealing her in a cell and letting her gather dust, like a toy collector hoarded a rare action figure in a sterile acid-free case and never touched it.  
  
"Oh, and a word of advice, fire your cook," she told the hidden camera. "I found bugs floating in the caf. And I won't mention what was in the tavah."  
  
She grinned evilly. That was her one weapon. All Imperial prisons had cams in every cell to monitor captives, and a technician was constantly assigned to keep an eye on what those cams recorded. She couldn't strike at Kain directly, but at least she could rattle his underlings.  
  
"Forenze."  
  
"What, you got a speaker in here too…" she began, turning around. "Son of a fwup!"  
  
Someone was in the cell with her – sort of. He was an old white-haired, bearded human, wearing loose robes and a kindly smile. But what unnerved Forenze was the fact that he was transparent, strangely ethereal, and he glowed softly.  
  
"I'm honored to finally meet you, niece of Jedi Master Vergere," he told her.  
  
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "It's the isolation, that's what it is. Isolation coupled with the stress of being a prisoner of war has caused the vivid visual and auditory hallucinations that signal the onset of a total nervous breakdown…"  
  
"I am Obi-wan Kenobi."  
  
Her eyes shot open. "Obi-wan? The Obi-wan who trained Luke Skywalker?"  
  
"I don't know of any other Obi-wans," he replied wryly. "And yes, I did train Luke."  
  
"But I thought you were dead! A Sith sliced a lightsaber through you!" She really couldn't bring herself to say Vader's name in conjunction with that murder.  
  
"From a certain point of view, yes. My material body is dead, but my spirit is one with the Force."  
  
"But you're dead!" she shrieked. "You can't be here if you're dead! It flies in the face of medical science!"  
  
"The Force is not bound by the rules of medical science. Having spent time around Jedi, I think you should know that."  
  
"Okay, so you're the ghost or spirit or whatnot of Obi-wan," she acknowledged, still not happy with this situation. "So what are you doing here? Why don't you go haunt Luke or something?"  
  
His smile widened. "You certainly are a spitfire, Forenze."  
  
"Are you gonna stand there and insult me, or do you have a purpose for being here? Oh, and I'd better warn you, we're probably being watched."  
  
"The holocam is malfunctioning," Obi-wan informed her with a sly look. "While the technician searches for the glitch, we have time to talk."  
  
"A ghost and a rascal," she huffed. "Why do I get the weird cellmates?"  
  
"If you'd listen a few minutes, I'd be happy to tell you why I'm here."  
  
"Fine, shoot."  
  
A vision unfolded before her eyes. She saw Princess Leia and that rogue Han Solo in the hold of the Millennium Falcon, talking softly. She tried to make out what they were saying, but evidently sound wasn't included in this ordeal. Han gently took Leia's hands in his, murmured something, and… were they kissing? A princess and a pirate… and she thought she'd seen odd couples.  
  
That scene blurred into another – that of a damp forested world, one untouched by either the Rebellion or the Empire. A diminutive green alien hobbled through the undergrowth, followed by none other than Luke and Vader.  
  
Another blur, and a third scene appeared – Darth Kain, taking orders from a black-cowled maggot of a man she assumed was the Emperor. Close by stood a chalk-pale woman in a skin-tight red suit and carrying a heavy blaster rifle. Kain bowed to his master obediently, then the Emperor and the woman boarded a shuttle.  
  
She cleared the visions with a shake of her head. "Stang…"  
  
"You saw Han and Leia during a respite in their flight from the Empire," Obi-wan clarified. "Next you saw Luke and Vader continuing their Jedi training under Yoda."  
  
Forenze whistled appreciatively. The Empire had wiped any trace of the Jedi Order from history archives, but Yoda had been a legend no power could erase.  
  
"The last scene showed Darth Kain, the Emperor, and the bounty hunter Aurra Sing. Palpatine and the hunter are on their way to the planet of Bespin, where they have set up a trap for the Millennium Falcon."  
  
"But why are you showing me this?" she demanded. "I can't do squat in this hole!"  
  
"Because the galaxy is edging closer toward a conflict that will decide the fate of the galaxy. Han and Leia too, but especially Luke and Vader, will be key players in that ultimate battle. Unfortunately, Kain and his vile master are determined to eliminate them before that conflict can be waged. And they mean to use you as a pawn to further their own ends."  
  
She swallowed. Being a simple Rebel captive was one thing, but a pawn in a much larger game… "Why me?" she squeaked.  
  
"Vader. Kain knows of your relationship and means to exploit it. He knows Luke and Vader will stop at nothing to ensure their friends' safety. He will be swift to take advantage of this."  
  
"I can prevent that," she assured him. "I've broken out of this crate once. I can do it again."  
  
Obi-wan smiled grimly. "I don't expect you to endanger yourself, Forenze. I only encourage you to be strong through the coming trials and do all you can to aid Vader and Luke. They'll need all the help they can get."  
  
Before she could ask what kind of help, he glanced at the door.  
  
"I must go. I am needed elsewhere. May the Force be with you."  
  
"Now just a minute…" she snapped, but he'd vanished. "Well, thanks for the pleasure of your company," she muttered sarcastically.  
  
The cell door hissed open, and Kain stepped inside.  
  
"About time, bucket-head," she griped.  
  
"Watch your mouth, doctor," he rasped. "It will be your death someday."  
  
"You're getting no information from me."  
  
"Who says I'm here for information?"  
  
A horribly familiar spherical droid entered the cell, beeping ominously.  
  
--------  
  
The day slid by slowly for Luke and Vader. Yoda had declared the rest of the day a free day, but the problem was that leisure activities were scarce on Dagobah. Luke finally resorted to running laps through the swamp, doing some deep thinking, while Vader and Artoo kept busy tinkering with Rusty's circuits.  
  
On his first pass through the clearing where their fighters and Yoda's hut were, he saw Vader making a final adjustment to a circuit board and closing the panel.  
  
"All right, let's power him up," he said gamely, flipping a switch.  
  
Rusty came to life with a whistle, then gave a horrendous screech as sparks and smoke billowed from every possible opening in his cylindrical body.  
  
"Turn him off! Turn him off!" he shouted, fumbling for the switch as Artoo shrouded the three of them in a fog of fire-smothering chemicals.  
  
Luke jogged on, the mayhem eventually fading in the distance. He thought about the Alliance for a while. Had they found a safe haven from the Empire's clutches? Were they at all concerned about the fate of their Rogue Commander and Second Commander? He wished he'd left a message with Wedge or any other Rogue, but there hadn't been time, and it was far too risky to send a message from Dagobah.  
  
He thought about Han and Leia, too. Surely by now they had either killed each other or finally admitted their feelings toward each other. He couldn't help laughing a little as he loped through a shallow pond. Knowing their stubborn natures, the first option was more likely.  
  
On his second trip through the clearing, he noted that the R4 unit's dome was missing. Its pieces were strewn on the ground as Vader and Artoo brooded over the array. Both of them, to Luke's amusement, were coated with sticky flame-retardant spray.  
  
Luke continued his run. Now his thoughts drifted toward his father. Did Yoda know him? If he'd trained Obi-wan, that was highly probable. But if so, why hadn't he volunteered any information? Why all the secrecy?  
  
And his mother… who was she? At least he knew his father's name and that he was a Jedi. But he knew absolutely nothing of his mother. Had she been a Jedi too? Was she still alive, or had Vader killed her too? What did she look like? What was her name? Had Yoda known her at all?  
  
When he entered the clearing again, Rusty was still in pieces – in fact, it looked as if Vader and Artoo hadn't even touched the components since he'd left them. Vader, he was considerably alarmed to see, was kneeling and doubled over as if in pain, trembling uncontrollably. Artoo was rocking back and forth and whining anxiously, his single red photoreceptor fastened on Luke as if expecting him to make everything right.  
  
"Vader!" he exclaimed, running toward him. Had he experienced another flashback? From the looks of it, it had to be an extremely disturbing memory.  
  
"Luke…" Vader moaned, his head lifting just barely.  
  
He knelt beside the stricken man and put his hands on his shoulders, trying to push him upright. "What happened? What is it?"  
  
"I… don't know." He slowly uncurled his body and straightened to an upright position, rubbing his arms as if chilled. "I just… felt something. Not a flashback, but pain… great pain. The only other time I've felt like this was when Bekme died on Yavin."  
  
Luke's stomach clenched. "You felt someone die?"  
  
"I don't think so. At the Battle of Yavin, I felt your emotional pain, not Bekme's death." He shivered again. "I think someone close to us is in great pain."  
  
"Han and Leia?" Luke asked anxiously.  
  
"I don't know. It came and went so quickly, I couldn't sense who it was or what was causing it."  
  
"Stang!" Luke clutched at his scalp in frustration. "Han and Leia must be in big trouble. Either that or the Alliance is in trouble, which isn't any better. We should be there helping…"  
  
"Help the Alliance more you can when Jedi you are," Yoda replied curtly, exiting his hut with a tray laden with three steaming cups. "Impatient you are, Skywalker. Slow down. On the moment concentrate, the here and now." He set the tray down. "Adventure. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things."  
  
"It's not adventure or excitement we want," Vader countered. "We don't want any harm coming to our friends."  
  
Yoda sighed. "Patience, younglings. Ready you will be when need you the Alliance truly does." He picked up the smallest of the three cups. "Drink. Help you relax it will."  
  
"Always prepared, aren't you?" noted Vader, taking a cup for himself. During one of his upgrade operations, Forenze had arranged a method for him to take in nourishment through his mask. It meant he was restricted to a liquid diet, but it also meant independence from nutrient tubes and external medical equipment – one more small victory in his constant battle against his cybernetic body.  
  
"Joy, more gimer-root tea," Luke joked with a faked groan, claiming the last cup. The stuff was a mild tranquilizing agent, allowing a Jedi to relax and meditate more easily. Actually, Luke enjoyed it, and he breathed in the tea's rich, slightly woody aroma before sipping.  
  
"Master," Vader pressed, "I distinctly felt someone in pain. Whoever it is, they're in great danger. Shouldn't we do something about it?"  
  
Yoda eyed him critically. "And if causing it Darth Kain or his twisted master is, think you that you can stop them alone? Far more powerful than you they are, Padawan. Destroy you they will."  
  
Vader didn't seem happy with this warning, but he decided to drop it.  
  
A long stretch of thoughtful silence, punctured by Artoo's blips and whirrs and the constant thrum of wildlife.  
  
"It's been a long day, hasn't it?" Luke asked rhetorically.  
  
"No longer than usual," Yoda replied.  
  
Despite himself, Luke grinned. "I guess I should rephrase that. It's been an eventful day."  
  
"Indeed. Come far you two have. Learned much you have. But Jedi you are not yet."  
  
Luke drained his cup and tossed it back onto the tray. Seeing as the evening was winding swiftly down, he may as well go to bed.  
  
"Why wish you to become Jedi?" Yoda asked.  
  
Vader chuckled. "Now he asks – ow!"  
  
"Respect your master you should," Yoda chided, lifting his cane as if to rap Vader's hand again. But he put it away and awaited an answer.  
  
"I know I was once a Jedi," Vader replied. "And I know I betrayed the Order. It is my hope that I can do penance of a sort by helping resurrect the Order."  
  
Yoda nodded. "And you, Luke?"  
  
Luke settled back into a sitting position. "I suppose because of my father. I never knew him. He's always been… I don't know… an enigma. A mystery. But I still feel a kind of bond with him, as if he's never actually left my side. And I'd like to follow in his footsteps."  
  
Yoda glanced up sharply. "And what footsteps would those be?" he demanded sharply.  
  
"My father was a Jedi," he replied, wondering why his remark had stunned their master so. "I want to be a Jedi, like he was. I want to follow a noble cause like his – a cause he died for."  
  
There was a dead-serious look in Yoda's eyes now. "And what know you of your father's fate?"  
  
"What are you getting at, Master?" asked Luke.  
  
"I betrayed and murdered his father," Vader answered for him. "But he has forgiven me. And though I do not remember committing the deed, I hope to repent of it by serving the Order."  
  
"Hmph," Yoda snorted. "Told you this who did?"  
  
"Obi-wan," Luke replied. "Why?"  
  
"Told you the truth from a certain point of view he did," Yoda replied, glowering upward as if addressing the cosmic ethers. "Always telling things from a certain point of view he was. Knew he did that his responsibility it was to tell you the truth…"  
  
/Neither of them were ready for the burden, Yoda/ came Kenobi's voice, bright and clear in all their minds. /What would you have had me do?/  
  
"The burden?" repeated Vader. "What burden?"  
  
Yoda lowered his head, his expression gravely sympathetic. "Time it is to tell you what Obi-wan should have revealed three years ago. Time it is to tell you of your father, Luke."  
  
Luke leaned forward intently, his stomach unexpectedly heavy with apprehension. Wasn't this what he'd been wanting all his life? To learn of his father's past? Then why was he so nervous? Something in Yoda's demeanor suggested that perhaps Obi-wan had a right to hide something from him.  
  
"Should I leave the two of you alone?" asked Vader.  
  
"Stay," Yoda ordered. "Concerns you too this does."  
  
/Forgive me, Luke and Vader/ came Obi-wan's voice again. /But I had my reasons…/ He never finished.  
  
"Your father Anakin Skywalker was," began Yoda. "Taken as an apprentice by Obi-wan he was."  
  
"I know all this," Luke protested.  
  
"Silence," Yoda instructed, then resumed. "A slave he had been to a junk dealer on Tatooine. An excellent pilot and mechanic he was, but full of fear and anger. Approved of his training I did not. He was too old, exposed he had been to dark emotions… But promised to train him Obi-wan had, and relented the Jedi Council did. Taken as Obi-wan's Padawan learner Anakin was.  
  
"Ten years Anakin studied, growing stronger every day. But disagreed on many counts he did with the Jedi Code."  
  
Luke nodded. The Code had been one of the first things they'd learned under Yoda's tutelage – five lines that instructed a Jedi how to live and conduct himself. /There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no chaos; there is order. There is no death; there is the Force./  
  
"Taught you the first part of the Order I did," Yoda said in echo of Luke's thoughts. "But other precepts the Code includes. 'A Jedi shall not take more than one apprentice at a time' is one, though good reason there was to disregard it in your case. Another is 'a Jedi shall not know…'"  
  
"'Shall not know discouragement… nor despair… nor love,'" Vader finished. When Luke glanced over at his fellow trainee, he was staring off into space, oddly contemplative.  
  
"Remembered it you have, then," Yoda noted.  
  
"Yes," he murmured, still lost in his own thoughts. "I never did like that part of the Code."  
  
Yoda nodded and continued. "Fell in love Anakin did with a senator from Naboo. Padme Amidala her name was, and first resisted his affections she did. But succumbed to her emotions she did, and married they did. A forbidden bond… one that destroyed them both.  
  
"Arise the fear and anger did in Anakin – the dark side. Fear that discovered their marriage might be. Anger when died in his arms his mother did. Planted in his heart hatred was – hatred toward the Jedi, toward all life, toward all that was good. Consumed by his passions he was, and in the end, destroyed his soul was by the dark side."  
  
Another pause, this one much longer. Luke's legs were cramping from staying in one position for so long, but he hardly noticed the pain. Yoda's story had commanded his entire attention.  
  
"Hide your mother had to. And hidden you were for your own safety, Luke. For the bane of the galaxy and the Jedi your father had become."  
  
The truth was hanging right in his face, but he refused to accept it, to acknowledge it, until Yoda's next sentence confirmed it.  
  
"Darth Vader your father became."  
  
Those five words hit him like a blow in the stomach. His world was spiraling rapidly out of control. Vader… he wasn't his father's murderer… he was his FATHER…  
  
The entire planet seemed to be holding its breath in anticipation of his reaction. Yoda watched him carefully, gauging his response. Vader was staring at him too – no, gaping. Even with his face sheathed in steel, his shock was completely evident.  
  
But the face beneath that metal shield was that of his father, for the Force's sake! The man who he'd thought of as his father's killer WAS his father! In a matter of seconds, Yoda had turned his world upside down. But why did it have to be Yoda who revealed it? Why had Obi-wan lied to him and let him believe a delusion all this time? Didn't he understand that he needed a father – but more importantly, he needed the truth?  
  
"No," Vader finally managed in a desperate whisper. "It's not true. It's impossible!"  
  
"Both of you your feelings search," Yoda replied. "Know it to be true you do."  
  
Search his feelings? Stars, how was he supposed to search his feelings when they were screaming to be released in a flurry of fists or a primal howl? This couldn't be happening; it had to be a dream! His mind couldn't accept this shattering revelation. His father couldn't be Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader!  
  
He stood abruptly. "I'm going for a walk."  
  
"Luke…" began Yoda.  
  
He didn't wait for the rest of it but simply walked away. Vader shouted something at his back, but he ignored it. Somehow Vader was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.  
  
"Ben," he moaned once he was some distance from the others, "why didn't you tell me?" He sank to his knees. "All this time he was right next to me and you didn't tell me…" He crumpled, shaking with sobs.  
  
In reply Obi-wan's presence enfolded him in a gentle, sad embrace.  
  
--------  
  
Vader stared in the direction Luke had retreated, still too dazed to move. All this time Luke had been his son? His very flesh and blood? The truth was staggering. And yet… he'd always felt close to the boy. The bond, however inexplicable, had existed all along. But why hadn't the truth been revealed to them earlier?  
  
Yoda lowered his head, eyes closed. "Taking it hard Luke is."  
  
"Of course he is," Vader retorted, unable to keep an iron edge out of his voice. "He finally has a face to put to his father's name, and it's the steel mask of a Sith! He should have known earlier… stang, we BOTH should have known earlier! Why did you and Obi-wan hide this for so long? Did you think we'd be too stupid to eventually figure it out?"  
  
"A wise man Obi-wan is," Yoda replied. "But make mistakes even he does. And besides, when asked about his father Luke did, a servant of the Emperor you still were. If known you were his father he had, joined you as a Sith he would have."  
  
"But Obi-wan should have corrected it when I joined the Alliance!" Vader shot back angrily. "Luke needed a father! He needed the truth, by the Force! Not certain points of view!" A sob caught in his throat, and the last of his argument came out a strained whisper. "I needed the truth, Master. I needed to know as much as he did…"  
  
Yoda raised his hand and grabbed the "chin" of Vader's mask, forcing him to look his master in the eyes. "Hard this is on both of you. Right you are that known earlier you should have, but change it I cannot. Live with the consequences and move on you must." He smiled sadly. "But now, needs you your son does."  
  
Vader stared at Yoda a minute, then got to his feet and walked away, still boiling with anger and shock. Luke had been hurt enough in his young life. He didn't need this on top of it. Luke was his friend and didn't deserve this…  
  
He halted, the full impact of Yoda's revelation finally sinking in. Luke was far more than his friend – he was his son. He'd always been his son. And he'd betrayed Luke just as much, if not more, than Obi-wan had.  
  
/I should have been there for Luke/ he thought. /Luke and his mother…/  
  
…"Don't be afraid," he murmured, hoping to extend some small comfort to the woman beside him.  
  
"I'm not afraid to die," she replied serenely.  
  
When he looked into Padme's face, he was surprised to find her as calm as if they were sitting down to dinner and not chained into a chariot, awaiting sure death.  
  
"I've been dying a little each day since you came back into my life," she continued.  
  
"I thought we had decided not to fall in love," he protested, but inside he was overwhelmed with happiness. "That we would be living a lie. That it would destroy us."  
  
"I think our lives are about to be destroyed already," Padme whispered. "I truly, deeply love you, and I want you to know before we die."  
  
He leaned forward as much as his shackles would allow and shared a gentle, passionate kiss with her, his entire being glowing with the joy of knowing she reciprocated his love…  
  
Vader stared into the gray sky. "Padme," he murmured, savoring the name on his tongue, mesmerized by the memory of her cascade of dark brown hair, her deep soulful brown eyes, her brilliant laughter and smile. It was almost as if she were standing here in the swamp with him, close enough to touch, to embrace…  
  
"Padme," he moaned, sinking to his knees. "Did I betray you as I betrayed our son? Did I destroy you too?"  
  
Bowing his head, he wept. The skies overhead poured down rain as if expressing tears of sympathy. 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8  
  
It was raining again, a solid downpour that turned every patch of dry ground to soupy muck and every tree into a veritable waterfall. Luke was beyond feeling the deluge, however. Truth be told, he wasn't at all sure what to feel. He'd run the entire gamut of emotions from depression to outright fury over the past half-hour and was almost numb with exhaustion.  
  
He sat on a boulder deep in the forest, water running through his hair and down his neck and back. He knew Vader and Yoda were probably concerned about his disappearance, but he didn't bother going back to the hut. At the moment, he didn't want to see anyone, much less those two.  
  
Heavy footsteps squelched behind him. "Luke?"  
  
He didn't turn to acknowledge Vader's presence.  
  
"Come back to the shelter," Vader encouraged gently. "You're going to catch a cold out here."  
  
He didn't move.  
  
"Luke," Vader pressed, "talk to me." A gloved hand squeezed his shoulder. "This shouldn't change the fact that we're friends."  
  
He closed his eyes against the pain. "Where were you when I needed you?" he demanded.  
  
A long, painful silence. "You know I can't answer that, Luke."  
  
Tears slid out from underneath his eyelids. "I've thought my father was dead for so long… but you've been right next to me all this time…"  
  
"Oh Luke," Vader murmured, sitting next to him and taking him in his arms, "I'm so sorry."  
  
"Why didn't Ben tell me?" he whispered through a tight throat, and despite himself he began sobbing again.  
  
Vader held him gently, allowing him to cry against his chest. Luke clung to him and vented his emotion, releasing the anger and depression he'd kept locked up for so long. The last time he'd cried like this… stang, it had been three years ago, when he'd still been a Second Commander and Vader a mechanic, when he'd accused him of murdering his father…  
  
/My father/ he realized. /My father's holding me. My father's right here, trying to comfort me. Just as I've wanted him to do all along./  
  
"F-father…" he choked.  
  
"Son," Vader breathed.  
  
"You were there all this time," he said, voice thick with emotion. "All this time and you were right there. I wanted a father to show me the way and guide me, and the whole time you were there guarding my back and offering advice, even standing up to Ghede to protect me…"  
  
"I've always felt close to you, Luke," Vader replied. "Ever since you cut me free from my TIE fighter on Yavin I've felt somehow bonded to you, something far more than simply being indebted to you for saving my life. Now that I know the truth…" He chuckled. "Stars, you've been my superior for three years. I've thought of you as an equal, if not an authority. Now that the roles are reversed, I don't know what to think."  
  
Again they were silent. Luke just wanted to remain there, in his father's arms, listening to his deep breathing and heartbeat. He wanted to ask so many questions about his father's past, to hear all his father's stories, even the deadly dull ones that most kids complained about. Then he remembered the amnesia and cursed fate for being so cruel. But then, if he hadn't suffered that blow, he'd still be a Sith Lord. Stars, he couldn't win either way!  
  
"When I was a kid," Luke said at last, "I used to ask my aunt and uncle questions about my father. They would never answer them. Uncle Owen would just tell me to forget about it. Aunt Beru just changed the subject. They never even spoke about him – about you, except once in awhile when Beru would tell me I looked just like you. All I ever got out of them was that you were a navigator on a spice freighter."  
  
Vader gave a little snort; Luke couldn't tell whether it was a smothered laugh or an expression of disdain. "Navigator… I'd like to see myself stay out of the pilot's seat of any ship."  
  
Luke managed a smile. "I can't picture you as a navigator somehow."  
  
"So you've been lied to all these years," Vader went on slowly. "First by your caretakers, then by Obi-wan. Though now that I think about it, they had due reason, I suppose."  
  
Luke pulled away, not wanting to hear that out of his father. "Don't play devil's advocate. How do you or anyone else know that I would have ran straight to Imperial Center and gone Sith had I known you were my father?"  
  
"Luke, how do we know you wouldn't have joined me? I've known you for three years, Luke, and I know a father is what you've always longed for. All you knew was a handed-down lightsaber and a cock-and-bull story of betrayal and murder. Knowing who and where your father was, could you have resisted going to find me even knowing full well I was the Emperor's right-hand man?"  
  
He didn't answer, but deep down he knew Vader was right. If Obi-wan had answered his question truthfully that fateful day in his hovel, Luke may very well have thrown his destiny aside and stopped at nothing to find his way to Vader's palace, never minding the consequences.  
  
"But you're not a Sith anymore," Luke countered. "You're a Rebel and a Jedi. And above all, you're my father." He gave an awkward sort of smile. "I suppose I'd better get used to this hotshot cyborg pilot being my dad."  
  
"And I suppose I'd better get used to my smart-mouth accident-prone Commander being my son," Vader replied, a smile in his voice.  
  
For a long time they simply stared at each other, not talking, but no longer unaccepting of Yoda's revelation. Now that they'd had a little time to absorb this information and recover from the shock, it no longer repulsed them. If anything, it only further explained their unlikely closeness. Ties of blood strengthened the ties of friendship, forging a bond that nothing could sever.  
  
"I'm sorry I don't have any fatherly 'when-I-was-your-age' stories to put you to sleep with," Vader said, half-jokingly but with a sort of wistful air. "An unfortunate side effect of the accident that precipitated all this."  
  
"That's okay," Luke assured him. "I understand. But I expect to hear all the details any time you happen to regain a memory, no matter how trivial it seems."  
  
"It's a deal," Vader promised, and they clasped hands.  
  
"Now for the biggest question – what do I call you?"  
  
"Beg pardon?"  
  
"Well, you have two names now – Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Three if you count Father. Which one do I use?"  
  
"Hmm," mused Vader. "There's the trick. If the Rebels hear you calling me Father, it will probably raise some awkward questions. And I'm not really used to the whole Anakin thing yet. So I suppose, until I regain a little more of my memory, you should continue to call me Vader."  
  
"Sounds logical."  
  
They stood and began to walk back to the clearing. Suddenly having a brainstorm, Luke reached down and unclipped the lightsaber at his belt.  
  
"Here," he told him. "You might want this back. It's rightfully yours."  
  
Vader shook his head. "You keep it. Call it a gift from your father."  
  
Luke's smile came more easily now. "Thank you, Father."  
  
"You're most welcome, Son." He draped an arm around Luke's shoulders. "Now back to the shelter. You're absolutely soaked."  
  
---------  
  
Yoda was waiting for them near his hut, and he smiled upon seeing his apprentices walking together, recovered from the shock of the news. "Ah, damaged your friendship this has not, I see."  
  
"It'll take some getting used to," Luke admitted. "But I think it'll be worth it in the end."  
  
"Very good," Yoda replied with a nod. "Late it is. Rest you should. Resume in the morning lessons do."  
  
"No getting out of them on account of family matters, eh?" quipped Vader, and the three of them shared the first laugh they'd had all day.  
  
As the two men strolled to their shelter, talking easily, Yoda ambled back into his house. Plucking a slender green snake off his table, he returned to preparing his supper. He was rather relieved that they were taking this so well after the initial blow of revelation and the ensuing feelings of betrayal. Vader especially – he'd felt he'd been betrayed by Obi-wan once before, and that had produced disastrous consequences.  
  
He shouldn't have been the one to break the news in the first place, though. Obi-wan should have revealed it back at Yavin, when it had first become apparent that Vader was in no danger of turning back to his dark past.  
  
/And what would Vader have done with that knowledge had he regained his memory and decided to go back to the Emperor after all?/ inquired Obi-wan.  
  
Yoda scowled. /Always having to speak your piece, aren't you?/ he demanded.  
  
/Don't make me out as the villain, Master Yoda. The last thing either of those two needs is another enemy. Kain and Palpatine are quite enough to handle without adding a third foe, however dead and gone he may be, to the mix./  
  
"Master?"  
  
Yoda knew who that voice belonged to, but he feigned surprise all the same. He whipped his cane around like a lightsaber and thrust it out the window. There came a startled shout as it clanged against a metal helmet.  
  
"Stang, master, if I weren't masked you would have taken my eye out!" exclaimed Vader.  
  
"Come sneaking around my home in the dead of night you should not," scolded Yoda.  
  
"My apologies, master." Vader's head reappeared in the window, his arm resting on the sill.  
  
"Accepted." He returned to chopping up roots. "Speak to me you wish to?"  
  
"Yes." A pause. "Why did the Jedi Order forbid love?"  
  
Yoda sighed. Of all the questions he could have asked about the Jedi Order or his past, he had to ask the most difficult one.  
  
/Shouldn't you have known this would come up sooner or later?/ came Obi-wan's wry comment.  
  
/Quiet, you/ ordered Yoda. "Many reasons."  
  
Vader shrugged. "I have all night."  
  
Yoda scooped up the chopped roots and dumped them in the bubbling stewpot. "A Jedi focused must be on the task before him. Have outside loyalties he cannot. Devoted to the Order he must be. If married to an outsider he is, interfere it can with his mission of keeping peace."  
  
"But what if he wed a fellow Jedi?" countered Vader. "His loyalties would still be to the Order."  
  
"Not to the Order," Yoda corrected. "To a person they would be. And if disintegrate that relationship does, by death or by other means, dangerous it can become. Arouse dark and dangerous feelings it can."  
  
"What feelings?"  
  
"Anger. Possessiveness. Lust. Jealousy. Despair. Vengeance. Attempted many Jedi have to keep secret unions, and fallen prey to these emotions they have."  
  
"Many, but not all, I presume?"  
  
"Early in the Order, marry many Jedi did. Rare Force-strongs were, and ensure more Padawans to take on the mantle of Knighthood it did. But fall to the dark side many Jedi did, and for the safety of the Order banned any further unions were. By then Jedi blood in many families existed, and easier to find new apprentices it was. But seen for its dangers love was, and avoided at all costs it is now."  
  
"Do you mean to tell me," demanded Vader, "that whenever a Jedi has departed the Order, it's been because of love?"  
  
Yoda considered that a moment. "Yes. In one form or another, yes. Love something other than a person one can. Power, wealth, revenge, addiction. Qui-gon Jinn's first apprentice, Xanatos, loved power and revenge, and sought both of these he did after killed by his master his father was. In the end, destroy him his power did. My Padawan, Dooku, a Sith became because loved his birth title of Count and the promise of the power of the dark side he did. But crushed and thrown aside he was by the dark side. And your fall… began it did when died your mother did, and hastened it was when married Padme Amidala you did."  
  
"But love can produce so much good!" Vader argued. "I love Luke as a comrade, a friend, and now as a son. We work together as a team through that love. And would we be as willing to serve and protect each other if there were no positive emotion between us?"  
  
"True," Yoda relented. "But an added risk you take. For if killed Luke were, take you anger and sorrow would. Fall to the dark side you may."  
  
Vader was silent a few minutes, pondering those words. Then, in an even voice, he gave his reply.  
  
"If that were the case, Master Yoda, a Jedi would turn to the dark side every time a master or apprentice were killed. After all, you can't tell me there's no affection or bond between a teacher and a student. You're like a father to me, and I know you must care about us or you'd have chucked us off-planet long ago.  
  
"Perhaps one must risk being preyed on by the darker emotions to truly experience the positive ones. To me, it's an acceptable gamble. But if, as you make it out, Jedi aren't allowed to experience feelings at all and must become insensitive hulks, I'm not sure I want to be one."  
  
Yoda listened quietly, only the very tips of his ears moving, and then only slightly.  
  
"Maybe that's why the galaxy stood by and did nothing when the Empire destroyed the Jedi," he concluded. "Because they had nothing in common with the Order anymore."  
  
He withdrew from the window, and damp footsteps marked his retreat to the shelter.  
  
Yoda sighed gustily and addressed the empty window. "Right you are, Vader. Right you are. But bury your feelings deep I hope you do. Do you credit they do, but made to serve the Emperor they could be."  
  
He turned back to the stewpot and stirred the contents, Vader's cutting observation still heavy on his mind.  
  
-------  
  
Emperor Palpatine opened his eyes, emerging from meditation within the raw energies of the dark side. So they knew now. That disgusting fossil of a Jedi had finally deemed it fit to tell the Skywalkers they were blood. It was about time, too. He was beginning to think the Jedi would keep those two completely ignorant for the rest of their lives.  
  
Frankly, he was surprised Yoda was divulging this at all. The accursed Jedi held family relations in low regard, almost all being plucked from their homes or out of the adoption system at very young ages. They couldn't understand such concepts as love, family ties, and parenthood.  
  
Not that those were traits the Sith Order encouraged or appreciated. On the contrary, the only value he saw in such relations was their exploitation value. It was remarkable, if not pathetic, that even the strongest non-Sith in the galaxy could be made to do anything if his loved ones were threatened.  
  
Thin, bloodless lips pulled taut over rotted teeth in a feral smile. Oh, this was going to be fun. The revelation that Luke and Vader were father and son created another strand in the web he was weaving to ensnare them.  
  
All was in place now. Forenze was in Kain's clutches, being treated to some of the Sith's brand of manipulation. Han and Leia were on their way to Bespin, blissfully unaware that they were soon to be pawns in his game. Kain would soon join him here to set the plan in motion. Very soon, the Skywalkers would become his prisoners… and eventually his servants.  
  
All that was required now was patience – which Palpatine had in spades.  
  
But then again, a little nudge in the right direction wouldn't hurt, would it?  
  
A dark ripple of the Force shot through the depths of space. Any Force-sensitive would be able to sense it – but only those with the proper training, such as the Skywalkers, would know its meaning.  
  
That completed, he returned to meditation.  
  
--------  
  
Luke was drifting, floating through space, unfettered by corporeal form. Across the stars he glided, past the raw blinding energies of a flaring supernova, through the cosmic mists of a nebula, acutely aware of the ripples in the Force created by manned starships and life-bearing satellites.  
  
A vast red orb filled his vision, a sphere of dense mists studded with metallic flecks that carried life. He recognized the planet – Bespin, the gas giant. One fleck practically glittered with life forms, and he approached it curiously.  
  
Cradled in the swirling clouds and mists of this planet was a magnificent city, a jeweled ivory crown floating through the skies. He drifted through the spires, bathed in the life forces of the beings who lived here, experiencing their joys and pains, their emotions his for a brief moment.  
  
Then searing, ripping pain closed its black claws over him. A spasm of agony laid his mind bare, and awful screams filled him.  
  
But the worst of it was that those screams – and the powers causing them – were familiar…  
  
He shot upright, dripping sweat and gasping for breath. Han! Leia! Chewie! They were suffering, perhaps dying…  
  
"Han! Forenze!"  
  
He turned to see Vader jolt out of an uneasy sleep, his breathing more labored than usual.  
  
"Luke," he gasped. "I had the worst nightmare…"  
  
"Of a red planet?" he asked.  
  
Vader stared at him. "A city in the clouds."  
  
"Han and Leia."  
  
"Yes. Forenze and Chewbacca, too."  
  
"Kain and the Emperor?"  
  
"Most likely."  
  
They scrambled to their feet. If they'd seen and felt the exact same thing, it couldn't be a mere nightmare. It had to be a vision of some sort… a warning.  
  
"We'd better get to Bespin fast!" Luke exclaimed.  
  
"I'm with you," Vader replied. 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9  
  
A biological life form may have found peace and serenity in a lush forested glade or a glittering ice cave, or considered the majestic power of a waterfall or the golden stillness of the desert a place of sanctuary. Threepio, being a droid, found his refuge in the shimmering metal spires and clean level walkways of Cloud City. After spending so much time in rugged surroundings – the Dune Sea, ice caverns, jungle, ruined temples, asteroids – it was a relief to finally be in sterile, technical paradise.  
  
Their host, Lando Calrissian, seemed pleasant enough. And such a gentleman toward Mistress Leia! It was refreshing to see that, even in this remote corner of the galaxy, there were still some life forms that retained a few manners.  
  
Really, he mused as he and his flesh-and-blood compatriots followed the Baron Administrator through the pristine hallways of the Baron's palace, what did the Princess see in that scoundrel Han Solo? Sure, he met the species' qualifications for good looks, but Calrissian was just as handsome, and he was so much more polished. And generous besides, offering their group shelter and aid in repairing the Falcon. If Leia were to pursue a relationship with him, Threepio wouldn't be at all adverse.  
  
But then, no one asked a droid's opinion. Even when said droid was an expert in human relations. Oh well. He was used to having his opinions ignored.  
  
It did seem odd to him that neither Leia nor Han acted as if they trusted Lando. What by the Maker was the matter? Lando hadn't done anything to suggest he meant them harm!  
  
Maybe it was his skin color, which was several shades darker than Han and Leia's. That was one of humanity's many puzzles that he'd never been able to solve – hatred based on a genetic factor. It was senseless, really. Lando had no more control over his flesh hue than a droid had in the color of his plating. And silver protocol droids certainly weren't prejudiced against gold protocol droids, were they? Nor did the different classes of astromechs refuse to work together simply because one was an R2 unit and another an R5…  
  
Speaking of astromechs… that sounded just like one! Had Artoo made it here too? Perhaps Master Luke and Master Vader were here as well! He broke off from the group and set off in the general direction of the droid's whistle to investigate.  
  
Thinking of Vader reminded him of that day three years ago when Vader had announced himself Threepio's maker. He'd never revealed that tidbit of data to anyone else – not because he considered it private or been ordered to keep it a secret, but simply because no one had ever questioned him about his maker. Still, it was an interesting, if questionable, fragment of trivia.  
  
"You there!"  
  
He looked up sharply, startled out of an unconscious computer process a biological would have termed a daydream.  
  
"Oh, excuse me – sorry to have disturbed you – no, please don't get up – no – no!"  
  
-------  
  
"He says he found him in a recycling plant," Han translated as Chewie deposited Threepio – who seemed to have gone to pieces somehow – onto the table in the sitting room where Lando had left them.  
  
"What a mess," Leia moaned. At least this explained where the poor droid had gone.  
  
"Well, maybe we can get Lando's people to fix him," Han offered, grabbing the sides of the box.  
  
"No," Leia said quickly. "Han, I don't trust him."  
  
"I don't trust him either," Han replied soothingly, a comment that did little to allay her concerns. "Why, what's the problem?"  
  
"I don't know," she confessed. "There's just something… off… about him. He's smooth and well-intentioned on the surface, but I can tell he's hiding something."  
  
"Well, if he didn't have some sort of scheme up his sleeve, he wouldn't be Lando," Han replied, letting go of the box. "Great gambler, great strategist, heck of a sabaac player." He flopped down onto a plush chair and stretched. "Ah, this is the life! I told you I'd find us someplace safe to hide."  
  
She had to smile. "After you nearly got us pounded to space dust, fried to a crisp, and eaten by a silicone leviathan."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
Chewie whuffed in amusement.  
  
"Oh, shut up, fuzzball," Han retorted. "See what you can do to get Goldenrod back in one piece, would you?"  
  
He nodded and began extracting pieces from the box.  
  
Leia sat down next to Han and, without thinking, leaned against him. He lowered his arm to gently embrace her. Idly she thought that if her father could see her now, he'd probably have a coronary. After all, Han was far from marriageable material in the eyes of most nobility. His lack of social standing (not to mention social graces) and apparent disregard of authority would have immediately disqualified him as a potential husband had she still been in Alderaan's Royal House.  
  
But nobility and the social ladder that accompanied it had little to do with actual romance and love. And though she had fought it for a long time, she could no longer deny the fact that she loved this pirate despite his flaws – or perhaps because of them. He was a rogue, a scoundrel, and somehow that made no difference to her.  
  
"Well, isn't this a cozy scene."  
  
She stood abruptly and Han sat up straight as Lando Calrissian entered the room with a swirl of his silken cloak, offering Leia a rakish grin. Handsome and poised, he looked every inch a Baron, yet he could just as easily have worn the garb of a pirate like Han and not looked a bit out of place.  
  
Though he had done nothing obvious to threaten her or Han, she felt her hackles rise. Something about him disturbed her, as if behind his well-meaning surface he had claws concealed. Han had assured her that they were completely safe here, but she hadn't become a high-ranking Rebel by blindly trusting everyone's word.  
  
She glanced down at Han's hand, which constantly remained near his blaster and credit pouch. Well, at least he wasn't throwing caution entirely to the wind.  
  
"My, lady, you're truly a vision," Lando said admiringly, taking her hand to kiss it. "If I may say so, you truly belong with us here in the clouds."  
  
As his lips touched her fingers, his gaze slid over to Han. The smuggler was glaring at his old comrade. At that, Leia had to smile. Lando wasn't a serious competitor for her affections; this was just an act to rile Han.  
  
"I came to ask if you three would like to partake in some refreshment with me," he continued.  
  
"Sounds good, we're starved," Han replied brusquely, taking Leia's arm possessively. Was he actually jealous?  
  
Lando's grin widened at his friend's protective action. Then his gaze fell on Threepio. "Having trouble with your droid?"  
  
Han offered him a rather sarcastic look. "No. Not at all."  
  
"I'm arranging to have lunch brought here," Lando went on. "You guys have had a long trip, from what I understand. So how'd you manage to pull this whole chase off, Han?"  
  
"By the skin of my teeth," Han admitted.  
  
While the two men discussed what had gone on since they'd last met, Leia stared out the window and tried to relax. It was hopeless, though. The nagging feeling that something monumental was about to happen just wouldn't go away. She drew a deep breath and reined in the premonition, keeping it at the back of her mind. Forewarned was forearmed. She would be prepared if Lando's intentions proved sinister.  
  
She let her thoughts drift toward Luke. Wherever he and the Rogues were, she hoped they were safe. Luke was probably worried sick about her, though. Would he be at all envious of her newfound relationship with Han? She doubted it – Luke wasn't the type to get jealous.  
  
Lando was going on about some sort of Imperial tax hike that was giving him headaches, and Han's next question brought her back to reality.  
  
"Aren't you afraid of the Empire overtaking this place?"  
  
"We're a small mining colony, so we're generally overlooked by the Empire, though the threat of a takeover constantly hangs over us and threatens all we've worked so hard to build." The door chimed, and he went over to key it open. "But I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever."  
  
The door rasped open.  
  
Leia felt them before she saw them, like twin suns that radiated jet-black rays. The sheer malevolence and hatred that rolled in waves over her made her gorge rise.  
  
Kain strode briskly into the room, his jet-black armor gleaming in the artificial light, an obsenity against the beautiful white walls of the room. Behind him came the stooped, ugly, twisted but by no means frail form of the Emperor, smiling evilly at them.  
  
Chewie belted out an uncharacteristically savage roar, and that startled Han to action. He tore his blaster loose from its holster and fired at the two Sith. Kain casually raised a hand, and the bolts ricocheted off an unseen barrier and struck the wall. He then extended the hand, and Han's blaster sprang from his grip and into the Sith's fingers.  
  
"We would be honored to join you," the Emperor said in an oily voice, his smile broadening.  
  
Stormtroopers filed into the room, surrounding the three of them. Last of all came the huntress Aurra Sing, a predatory smile on her lips.  
  
"I had no choice," Lando said firmly, his smile gone. "They came right before you did."  
  
"Yeah," Han sneered. "You're a real pal."  
  
------  
  
The Desert Angel flopped to an ungainly landing in the mud, jostled loose from the trees by repeated tugs of the Force. Vader quickly scanned the fighter for damage before motioning for Artoo to board.  
  
"Couldn't you do that a little more quietly?" hissed Luke, wrestling Rusty into his X-wing socket. "You'll wake him up." He jerked his head toward the hut.  
  
"Yoda sleeps like a corpse," Vader retorted. "Besides, how else was I supposed to get her down?"  
  
Rusty uttered a faint whine as he finally clicked into place. Vader had slapped the droid back together as quickly as possible, but the hasty job had only served to muddle his logic processor even more than before. If he made it to Cloud City without blowing his motivator or suffering a meltdown, it would be a miracle.  
  
"Ready to go?" asked Vader.  
  
"Ready when you are."  
  
Vader half-expected Yoda to storm out of his hut, railing at them for abandoning their training for the sake of a silly nightmare. For a moment he felt a pang of regret for doing this, for leaving without so much as informing Yoda of their destination and reason for departing so quickly. After all, he'd explicitly cautioned them against going off to face Kain and Palpatine before the time was right.  
  
But then the memory of their conversation – and Yoda's self-righteous denunciation of anything dealing with friendship and love – returned with a sour taste in his mouth. The knowledge that the Jedi Order considered love to be worse than worthless but downright destructive rankled on a very deep level. Yoda had obviously never known a true, deep love like he and Luke had. And he was sure that if they awakened him now and told him they were leaving to aid their friends, he would forbid them from going.  
  
He curled his lip and powered the Angel's engines. If Yoda would rather see their friends die, so be it. But he wasn't going to sit back and do nothing simply because of some twisted Jedi theory.  
  
The X-wing began to rise, and the Angel lifted off the ground to join it. Their starfighters soared above the clouds and into the jeweled blackness of space, their courses set for Bespin.  
  
"Don't you think we should have at least left a note?" asked Luke. "I mean, Yoda's bound to be pretty concerned when he sees our bedrolls empty…"  
  
"He's a Jedi," Vader replied brusquely. "He can find out where we are quick enough through the Force."  
  
"I know. But he's still going to be worried…"  
  
"As far as I'm concerned, he can stew."  
  
"Yikes, you're touchy. What exactly did you two talk about last night?"  
  
"Love. Or more accurately, the Jedi edict forbidding it."  
  
A long pause. "I see."  
  
The stars became swaths of light on either side as their ships penetrated hyperspace. Vader leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, trying to quiet his mind and release his pent-up anger and confusion, but his thoughts wouldn't be still.  
  
/A Jedi shall not know discouragement, nor despair, nor love. A Jedi shall not know love. There is no emotion, there is peace. But what kind of life is that? A life where you're not allowed to form bonds of friendship, where devotion of any kind except to the Force is considered dangerous? Is that really the kind of life I want?/  
  
"Father, if you think any louder, this entire sector's going to hear it," Luke chided. "You're angry with Master Yoda, aren't you?"  
  
"No," he retorted quickly. "I'm just… frustrated with the Order. With that particular section of the Code. I know it's gotten me into trouble before, but still… I don't see the justification in it."  
  
"I agree with you there," Luke sympathized. "Life would get pretty unbearable without friends. But don't take it out on Master Yoda. Sure he's old, but that part of the Code predates even his lifespan. It's not like he invented it to make our lives miserable."  
  
"True." He closed his eyes again as his anger toward Yoda began to melt away. "True…"  
  
…"How feel you?" Yoda asked him, a finger tapping his chin.  
  
"Cold, sir," he replied truthfully. This room was kept at a temperature that was probably comfortable to anyone not from Tatooine, but he was shivering. He wished he were back home with his mother. He didn't like these Jedi staring at him like he was a bother.  
  
"Your thoughts dwell on your mother," noted an alien Jedi whose name he didn't know, a humanoid with a beard and a tall, hairless, cone-shaped skull.  
  
"I miss her," he mumbled, staring at the floor.  
  
"Fear for her you do," Yoda persisted.  
  
"What does that have to do with anything?" he demanded, wishing these Jedi would stop probing into his mind.  
  
"Everything!" Yoda admonished. "Fear is the path that leads to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering!" He nodded gravely, his green eyes narrowing. "I sense much fear in you."  
  
He lowered his head in shame, angry that they had invaded the privacy of his thoughts and feelings, angry that they were acting as if he were somehow bad for missing his mom and worrying for her safety…  
  
He shuddered as the memory faded. "Not again…"  
  
"Another flashback?" asked Luke, sounding eager to hear it.  
  
"I'm not telling you this one," he insisted.  
  
"Why not?" demanded Luke.  
  
"Just don't ask," he said forcefully, feeling his face flush. "Even I deserve some privacy in my thoughts."  
  
Luke was silent, evidently deciding to drop the matter.  
  
Vader said nothing else for the duration for the trip. He felt as if he might explode if he opened his mouth one more time. The foreboding and anxiety generated by his vision of Han and Forenze's pain was bad enough, and now he had to deal with feelings of anger toward Yoda and the Jedi Code as well! The turbulent emotions burned sullenly in the pit of his stomach, like a banked ember just waiting for a breath of oxygen or a stick of kindling to flare up again.  
  
He tried his best to ignore that knot of anger… and the encroaching darkness that seemed to gain its strength from it.  
  
/By the stars/ he thought, /first the wampa, then the flashbacks, now this… am I becoming what I had hoped to destroy?/  
  
--------  
  
Yoda watched the glowing specks that were the departing starfighters of his Padawans fade into the clouds from the doorway of his hut, unnoticed and silent. The dark-side-induced nightmare had awakened him as well as his two apprentices, but unlike them he had recognized it as a trap. But something – he suspected the Force-spirit of Qui-gon, but he couldn't be sure – had held him back from warning Luke and Vader.  
  
Why he was forbidden from interfering, he wasn't sure. Perhaps it had been a test for the Skywalkers. It wasn't healthy to coddle an apprentice; some trials they had to overcome on their own. But such tests were just as trying on the masters as they were on the Padawans, for it was difficult to simply sit back and watch a trainee struggle on his or her own, make mistakes and learn the consequences, and sometimes even fail.  
  
He lowered his head regretfully. If this were truly a test, the Skywalkers had failed miserably. And that weighed heavily upon his heart.  
  
/Don't be so sure of their failure, Yoda/ Obi-wan told him kindly. /I've seen those boys do some remarkable things. Perhaps they can deal the Sith a good fight./  
  
"Too much faith you place in them," Yoda snapped. "Told the entire Order you did that the salvation of the Order those two were – and look now. Gone they are. Their greatest weakness their friends were, and quick to exploit it the Emperor was. Told you I did that a bad idea this was."  
  
/Have a little faith, you old skeptic/ chided Obi-wan.  
  
Yoda looked back up at the sky, at a stray patch of clear sky. "Tested greatly they will be. Especially Vader. Lose him again we may."  
  
/But aren't all Jedi tested? Yoda, you must have faith that they will take the right path. After all, they're our last hope./  
  
"No," corrected Yoda. "There is another."  
  
------  
  
The cell door hissed open, and the troopers flung Han Solo's limp, sweat-soaked body onto the steel floor of the cell before leaving. Blinded with agony, Han barely had the strength to groan in pain, let alone acknowledge Chewie's frantic howl or Threepio's complaints that the Wookie was doing a shoddy job of reassembling him.  
  
"What the stang? You too? Who's next, High Command?"  
  
Han groaned again, this time from a different sort of pain. The last person he wanted to share a cell with was that crabby medical officer.  
  
"Get him up on the bench, Chewie," Forenze ordered. "I'll see what I can do for him."  
  
Then again, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. She was a doctor, after all.  
  
Furry arms gripped him and hoisted him up like a rag doll, depositing him gently on the metal cot. He felt cool clawed hands carefully open his shirt and examine his chest for wounds. He hissed as she gingerly felt his cracked ribs. And he could have wept with joy when he felt Leia's soft comforting lips on his cheek.  
  
"I feel terrible," he moaned.  
  
"You look terrible," Forenze agreed a little too quickly.  
  
He managed to focus his eyes enough to see her face more clearly. "You don't look so good yourself, birdbeak."  
  
"I didn't ask for commentary!" she snapped, one hand clapping over her blackened, swollen-shut left eye.  
  
"Why are they doing this?" asked Leia, not expecting an answer. Her hair had worked itself loose from its braids and now stood out at bizarre angles, but if the Imperials had roughed her up too, she showed no other sign of it. Her pain seemed to come more from seeing him in agony.  
  
/Stang, how did I get so lucky?/ he thought with a well-deserved twinge of happiness. /She really does love me!/  
  
Chewie whimpered slightly. Han didn't even ask what he'd been through but clung to the Woookie in a fervent embrace, seeking comfort and giving it all at once.  
  
"Han?"  
  
He snarled, not bothering to turn. "Go away, Lando."  
  
Lando ignored him. A few of Cloud City's security guards followed him into the cell. "I have some bad news."  
  
"Since when have you been able to offer us anything besides that?" demanded Leia.  
  
"Look, this is not my fault!" Lando insisted. "When the Emperor wants something, he gets it, by hook or by crook. That's all there is to it. And I'm not going to have my people suffer when I can do something to prevent it."  
  
"Spit out the bad news and get it over with," Han advised.  
  
"Darth Kain and the Emperor are going to turn Han over to the bounty hunter."  
  
Han winced. Well, he'd asked. And he'd known he'd have to face Jabba sometime. But he'd always thought it would be on his own terms, with a box full of credits to appease his temper and a gun by his side to ward off his hostile cohorts.  
  
"What about Leia?" he asked.  
  
"She'll be fine. She and the two aliens will have to stay here, but they'll be safe. I'll take good care of them, I promise."  
  
"And you really believe all this poodoo?" snapped Forenze.  
  
"The Emperor made a deal…" Lando protested.  
  
"The Emperor wants us all dead!" Leia shouted.  
  
"He doesn't want any of you!" Lando retorted. "He's after somebody called…" He searched his memory for the name. "…Skywalker!"  
  
That took Han's breath away as surely as a blow to the stomach. "Luke!"  
  
"He and Kain have set a trap for him…" Lando explained.  
  
"And we're the friggin' bait!" shrieked Forenze.  
  
"Look, I'm sorry I can't help you any more, but I've got my own problems!"  
  
Han lunged, his fist catching Lando's jaw before a blaster butt to his temple drove him back to the floor. Chewie hovered protectively over him and snarled at the guards.  
  
"I guess we know where your loyalties lie," Leia remarked coldly.  
  
Lando didn't reply but stormed out of the cell, muttering, "This deal keeps getting worse all the time." 


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10  
  
Piett had overheard Lando's "this deal keeps getting worse all the time" remark as the Baron Administrator hastily exited the Rebels' cell, nursing a bruised jaw. And at the moment, that was exactly the Admiral's sentiment regarding this whole outrageous plot Kain and Palpatine had cooked up.  
  
The carbon-freezing facility reeked of acrid steam and molten metal. The glare of orange and blue lights dyed the stormtroopers' armor a pale ocher color on the front and a silvery-blue in back, making them look oddly two-toned. The hatch descending into the actual carbon-freezing chamber glowed eerily like the eye of a demon – or perhaps more appropriately, a portal to Hell. Tiny porcine Ugnaughts bustled about the portal like imps, squealing orders and flipping switches all the while. Hot dirty fog billowed from vents and leaky pipes and shrouded everything in metallic steam.  
  
All in all an unpleasant place, and the presence of two Sith didn't help matters.  
  
Piett kept out of sight, standing in the shadows and watching the proceedings through a gauzy curtain of steam. All this activity puzzled him. What under the stars were Kain and the Emperor up to now? From what he'd heard, they were here to catch Skywalker, not deal in the preservation of tibanna gas.  
  
"If you put Skywalker in there, it'll kill him!" Lando insisted angrily.  
  
"We don't want our prize damaged, of course," sneered the Emperor "So if you insist it's so dangerous, we'll test it on one of our Rebel friends. The pirate, perhaps?"  
  
Piett jerked, startled. The Emperor was planning on carbon-freezing a person? Such an action was ludicrous! Sure, it could effectively put a living creature in suspended animation, but only if said creature actually survived the freezing process – a fifty-fifty proposition under the best of circumstances.  
  
"But he's no good to me dead!" protested Aurra Sing, eyes flashing.  
  
"If he dies, you will be compensated for your loss," Palpatine assured her smoothly.  
  
Piett flinched at the Emperor's callously casual tone.  
  
An aide stepped to his side. "Admiral, message from the Executor."  
  
He took the comm unit from the aide. "Piett here."  
  
"Sir, two starfighters are approaching the city, one X-wing class and the other a modified N-1. Neither pilot has responded to our hails. Awaiting orders."  
  
"One moment." He stepped forward to stand at Kain's side. "My lord…"  
  
"I heard it all," Kain interrupted. "Allow them to land and see to it that the pilots find their way here."  
  
"Yes, my Lord," he murmured, and retreated to the relative safety of the shadows to relay the message.  
  
Two stormtroopers stepped forward to drag the Corellian forward… and were promptly thrown over the edge of the platform as the Wookie went into a howling rage. More troopers charged forward to restrain the beast, but most of them had their helmeted skulls banged together before they managed to cuff him.  
  
"Chewie!" the smuggler cried. "No! Save your strength! You have to protect the princess now!"  
  
Piett watched as the troopers and Ugnaughts forced the man toward the hatch, removing the hand binders. The Wookie whimpered, the Fosh glowered at everyone and everything but her soon-to-be-frozen comrade, and the princess… was crying. Not sobbing, not screaming, just weeping silently, the amber light upon her face making her appear to shed tears of gold.  
  
He took a moment to truly study the visages of these men and women. In all his years of servitude toward the Empire he'd never actually come face-to-face with a Rebel. Mostly he knew them as numbers or statistics, or occasionally a name on a wanted poster or a headline in a Holonet article detailing the escape, capture, trial, or execution of a particularly notorious Rebel. The closest he'd come to actually seeing one was viewing their X-wings and blockade runners through viewports – usually the thruster end. But it had never really occurred to him that the enemy had a face.  
  
The Wookie was a novel sight for him – he'd never seen a free Wookie before either. The terrified, half-starved Imperial slaves he was familiar with were nowhere near as tall and healthy-looking as this specimen. He had plenty of muscle mass, his fur was glossy and free of snarls, and his eyes gleamed with bold independence.  
  
But within those eyes was also a deep sadness, not only the pain of losing his friend, but the accumulated sorrows of a lifetime that exceeded his own. It struck him that this Wookie had been traveling the galaxy long before Piett's grandfather was born, had seen the Republic and Jedi Order in their days of glory. He had viewed firsthand the Republic's fall and the rise of the Empire. For a moment he had a crazy desire to pull the creature aside and ask him what those days had been like, if he'd ever come in contact with a Jedi, if he'd had family or friends lost to the Empire.  
  
Instead, his gaze moved to the Fosh. She had a peculiar alien beauty that might have intrigued him under different circumstances. But her right eye had been darkened by an interrogator's fist, her feathered crest was in frightful disarray, and her white medic's coat was badly rumpled and stained with blood – her own or some other unlucky soul's, who knew? And like the Wookie, her burnt-orange eyes betrayed a lifetime of pain.  
  
Her plight was far from unique – no non-human born under the Empire's reign escaped unscathed. Being alien was a crime as far as the dictatorship was concerned, and aliens of any species could expect enslavement, abuse, genocide, and other atrocities from most of the human populace. But it had never actually registered in Piett's mind that such practices were beyond immoral but brutal and cruel – until now.  
  
Had circumstances been different he might have approached her and attempted to comfort her, tried to apologize for anything he might have done to contribute to her people's suffering.  
  
But he turned his attention to the princess. Again the pain in her deep brown eyes, again the agony accumulated over a lifetime. But foremost in her eyes were the freshly torn wounds of losing her beloved.  
  
He watched the drama unfolding before him in fascination, watched the pirate and the princess exchange one final moment of closeness before he was forcibly hauled away from her. The fact that the enemy was comprised of living, emoting beings was never so clear to him before now. Never before had he imagined the Rebels being anything beyond malicious, crazed terrorists, let alone friends and lovers.  
  
The Emperor himself stepped forward to activate the carbon-freezing chamber, breaking off Piett's study. A sudden loathing filled his chest at that moment – hatred toward this disgusting insect of a man and his homicidal lapdog, hatred toward the emotionless clone soldiers standing guard like so many paper cutouts, hatred toward an Empire that swept aside lives like so many game tokens at heartless leaders' whims. How could anyone, human or not, stand there and SMILE while inflicting pain on sentient beings?!  
  
"I love you," the princess whispered.  
  
"I know," the Corellian replied.  
  
And he sank out of sight as the freezing process began.  
  
It was at that precise moment that Admiral Piett's loyalties shifted dramatically. The Rebellion and Empire would record it differently, but in Piett's mind he had defected the moment the smuggler's body descended into the carbon-freezing apparatus. He had seen the other side and sympathized with their plights. And in doing so, he found he couldn't go back. He couldn't serve an Emperor who derived pleasure from oppressing and torturing his subjects.  
  
He would no longer defend the Empire. He would fight it!  
  
The question was how, though. He had no idea how to contact the Rebellion and so couldn't join them directly. He supposed he could leak information to likely sources or commit some minor sabotage on the battlefield, but somehow that didn't seem good enough.  
  
Perhaps a single, decisive blow was what he needed. One act that would do considerable damage to the Empire and let the entire galaxy know his true allegiance, even if it resulted in his murder at a Sith's hands. Could he attempt to assassinate Kain? Not a chance; he was a fair pilot but poor at hand-to-hand combat. Kain would slaughter him. Could he release the princess and two aliens and aid them in their escape? But he couldn't be sure they'd make it off the planet alive.  
  
A slab of carbonite emerged, the visage of the smuggler etched in all his agony on the surface. The Ugnaughts shoved it to the floor with a tremendous crash, and Lando bent over it to check the poor man's vital signs.  
  
"Did he survive?" rasped Kain.  
  
"Yes," Lando replied, voice thick with relief, "and he's in perfect hibernation."  
  
"Good," the Emperor crooned in a voice as smooth and cold as marble. "He's all yours, Madam Sing. Reset the chamber for Skywalker, and take the princess, Wookie, and medical officer to my ship."  
  
/Skywalker!/ That was it! He'd go find Skywalker and warn him! That would give him a chance to escape, and the Sith would be denied their prize! He had to strain to keep an exultant smile off his face, though it would have been the first he'd worn in over a year. He knew he would be rewarded for his actions with an excruciating death, but in his mind it would be worth it.  
  
Stormtroopers herded the remaining Rebels in one direction while workers fitted repulsors to the carbon block and pushed it in another direction. Kain and the Emperor stalked off yet another way, exchanging some heated words with Lando.  
  
Piett managed to slip away unnoticed. If there was a time to act, he theorized, it was now.  
  
---------  
  
Cloud City was in an uproar. The Baron Administrator had just announced over the citywide PA system that the Empire was in the process of taking over the city, and he advised everyone to evacuate as soon as possible. Few citizens of the city harbored any loyalty toward the Empire, and the result was mass pandemonium as panicked civilians flooded the streets and air traffic became hopelessly snarled.  
  
That was perhaps the only reason why the arrival of a former Sith and the galaxy's most wanted Rebel went largely unnoticed.  
  
"Good stars!" exclaimed Vader in dismay as they leaped down from their fighters. "Kain and the Emperor certainly know how to complicate things."  
  
Luke rolled his eyes. "Great. What else can go wrong?"  
  
A hideous screech, and Rusty's dome exploded, showering fragments of steel and circuitry upon the two fighters and a horrified Artoo.  
  
"Please don't say that again," Vader advised.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Two Gotal gas miners and a human frozen-dessert vendor, the latter still clutching his portable freezing unit, almost crashed into them in their attempt to board an already overcrowded shuttle. More hysterical citizens clogged the streets, making it nearly impossible to travel. Few people paid the two Padawans any attention, and those that did recognize Vader's mask were generally too intent on getting out of the city to think much on it.  
  
"There's got to be a better way to find the others," snapped Vader, sidestepping to avoid the headlong rush of a pack of hysterical teenagers.  
  
Luke heartily agreed. It was going to be impossible to find their friends in this bedlam.  
  
The flash of a gray military uniform attracted his attention. He turned to see a gaunt, haggard-looking Imperial officer beckoning frantically from a doorway, a desperate expression on his face. For a moment Luke was suspicious of the man's intentions, but his instincts told him to trust him. But what could he want?  
  
"Vader," he hissed, inclining his head toward the man.  
  
"An Imperial?" Vader asked skeptically.  
  
"I don't feel like he means us any harm," Luke said by way of explanation.  
  
Vader didn't seem convinced, but he followed Luke through the doorway.  
  
The Imperial bore the insignia of Admiral upon his breast, but it didn't look like he'd worn the title very long. He could have been described as handsome once, but he seemed prematurely aged somehow, as if his new duties had taken a disastrous toll on him. When his gaze rested on Vader, Luke fully expected him to erupt into hysterics. Instead, his face lit up in understanding.  
  
"Then the rumors are true," he breathed. "You joined the Rebellion."  
  
Vader stared blankly at the man. "Who are you?"  
  
"Admiral Piett of the Stardestroyer Executor," he replied. "But you probably wouldn't know me, as I was a mere ensign when you… changed your affiliations."  
  
"I don't think he'd know you anyway…" began Luke.  
  
"Luke," Vader cut off. "He doesn't need to know everything."  
  
"Oh," he replied sheepishly. "Uh, can we help you, Piett?"  
  
Piett's gaze returned to Luke. "Skywalker, run!" he urged. "This is a trap! Darth Kain and the Emperor plan on carbon-freezing you and taking you back to Corusant as their captive! Get away, far away!"  
  
Luke was stunned. Why was an Imperial putting his own neck on the line for him? "Why are you telling me this?"  
  
"Because I've served under Kain for too long," he replied harshly. "I've seen too many atrocities firsthand to justify serving that insane hunter and his sadistic master any longer. I had to do something to disrupt their plans, and this was the only way I could see to do it." Having vented his emotions and looking much better for it, he took a deep breath. "Now go! With the evacuation in progress, no one will notice your departure."  
  
"Indeed they won't," Vader replied. "Because we will not leave Bespin without our friends."  
  
"But…" protested Piett, crestfallen.  
  
"It's called loyalty," Luke told him not unkindly. "It's a trait common in the Alliance. We won't have our friends suffer when we can do something to prevent it." He smiled. "What you can do to help us, though, is contact the Alliance."  
  
Piett's jaw dropped open.  
  
"Use the code B814-03," Vader added. "Tell whoever answers that you have the authorization of Commander Skywalker and Second Commander Vader. Tell them we need reinforcements to liberate Cloud City."  
  
His face broke into a wide grin. "I can do that."  
  
"Thank you, Piett, and welcome to the Alliance," Luke told him. "Now hurry."  
  
Piett nodded and took off at a brisk jog.  
  
"That was unexpected," Vader noted.  
  
"But it worked to our advantage," Luke replied. He took a moment to study the hallway they were in. "Whoa. Where are we?"  
  
The white marble halls of this building were oddly quiet, especially compared to the chaos outside. Luke had never entered a palace before, but he couldn't imagine this place being anything else.  
  
He listened closely. Deep in the bowels of the building he thought he could hear blaster fire. Imperials, no doubt. And the Force confirmed that his friends were in there as well.  
  
"They're here, Vader!" he exclaimed. "Let's go!"  
  
But Vader was gazing in a different direction, as still as a nekk intent on a scent.  
  
"Father, c'mon!" he urged.  
  
As if waking from a dream Vader turned to Luke. "You go, Luke. I'm needed elsewhere."  
  
What the stang did that mean? "Why?"  
  
"I don't know. A tremor in the Force…" He motioned for Luke to continue. "Go. I'll be a few minutes behind you."  
  
"I'm holding you to that," Luke replied only half-jokingly, and he sprinted down the hall.  
  
Vader watched him go, then strode off toward the lower levels of the building.  
  
--------  
  
The holoscreen flickered out as the Emperor switched it off.  
  
"Fool," Kain hissed. "Does Piett think we're oblivious? That the cams all over the city are just decorations?"  
  
"We'll deal with Piett's treason later," Piett replied. "Our primary concern is that Vader is on his way here and Skywalker is in the Baron's palace. I'll handle Vader, but Skywalker is your responsibility. Subdue him and bring him here."  
  
"Yes, my master."  
  
"Now go."  
  
Kain stepped down from the platform and stalked off, the blasts of steam transforming him into a ghostly silhouette. Palpatine grinned wickedly. Skywalker would be no match for his apprentice. He would soon be theirs. But it would be far more difficult to convince him to join their cause. Oh well. They'd cross that bridge when they came to it.  
  
Vader, however… he would be a pleasure to turn. He served the Rebellion out of blissful ignorance, not true loyalty. Once he showed the man the true nature of the Force, though, he expected he'd change his tune.  
  
/Then/ he thought, /we'll see which side of the Force needs balancing./  
  
----------  
  
Like a dark bird of prey Kain swooped through the hallways, drawn by Skywalker's presence like a sando aqua monster to the scent of blood. His hands clenched at his sides as he anticipated the hiss of sabers, the euphoria of adrenalin, and the cold embrace of the dark side. Lust pounded through his veins… blood lust.  
  
Skywalker would die today.  
  
A locked door impeded his progress – but not for long. He wasted no subtlety in his impatience but released his pent-up frustration. The door exploded, and slabs of ragged metal scattered before him as he strode on without slackening his pace.  
  
No Skywalker would join the Sith. Not while Kain bore the title of Sith Apprentice. They were Jedi, unworthy of being called comrades. They only deserved to be crushed underfoot to make way for the reign of the dark side.  
  
He sensed Skywalker's presence around the bend. Activating his saber, he grinned savagely and rounded the corner. 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11  
  
For all its surface glitz and glamour, Cloud City was first and foremost a mining colony. Thus, no square meter of space went to waste. Most buildings, even the most sophisticated restaurants and hotels, maintained refineries, storage facilities, or workers' quarters in their bottommost levels. The Baron Administrator's palace was a prime example of this, having been built atop a carbon-freezing chamber.  
  
Vader ducked beneath a leaking, dangling hose as he carefully made his way through the facility. Like Dagobah, this room was shrouded in silvery mists. But whereas on Dagobah the fog was cool and smelled of fresh rain, here it made the air miserably muggy and stank like a foundry. Condensation collected on his lenses, and he had to pause frequently to wipe them clean.  
  
What could be down here? It certainly wasn't Han, Leia, or Forenze. It was familiar, yes, but not anyone he'd met recently. Perhaps it was a face out of his past. Whatever it was, it called to him like a beacon, and he couldn't rest until he located and identified it.  
  
He sensed movement to his left, and he whirled, one hand hovering over his weapon. A squat form was approaching, reduced to a shadow by the clouds of steam. One of Cloud City's resident Ugaughts? Then a series of beeps betrayed the being's identity.  
  
"What are you doing down here, Artoo?" he hissed.  
  
The astromech chimed merrily.  
  
"Thank you, but I don't need your help."  
  
Artoo let out a long spiel.  
  
"Shush! If you want to do something to help me, find Luke and the others. I must do this alone."  
  
He gave a disappointed whine and turned around, slinking off like a sulky child. He had to chuckle a little at the droid's attitude.  
  
A glowing round portal shone in the floor several paces away. He approached and peered curiously down into the chamber. Solidified carbonite crusted the nozzles – obviously someone had used this not long ago.  
  
Then he remembered the wave of agony he'd felt on Dagobah – a cold fire searing his skin and cutting into his bones. They'd frozen Han in here! He couldn't suppress a revolted shudder. If he'd needed proof of Kain and Palpatine's cruelty, here it was.  
  
An icy tendril of the Force, like a decayed hand, touched his mind, and he drew his weapon as he turned to its source.  
  
"Welcome back, my young apprentice."  
  
A cowled form separated itself from the shadows.  
  
He activated the saber. "Palpatine."  
  
The Emperor stepped into view, his pasty features yellowed by the sickly light. A claw-like hand clenched his hooded black robe shut while he gripped a twisted ebony cane with the other. His zombie-like orange eyes glowed, alight with a malicious delight. His entire form was bent and gnarled, and his signature in the Force felt diseased, corrupted, devouring its bearer like an incurable cancer.  
  
/He's like a parasite/ Vader thought. /A parasite that, lacking a host, is starved and eating of itself, destroying itself./  
  
But his face… Vader was hard-pressed to decide what that face most resembled. It was predatory, like a cannibal or a rapist, with a desperate desire to possess all he could and destroy what he couldn't. A light of insanity glittered in his eyes, and the hideous smile he wore told Vader that he gloried in his own madness. A madman, a fanatic, a murderer, a predator… he was all this and more. He was all that was evil and vile and filthy in this universe.  
  
Vader shuddered again, feeling defiled by his very gaze. This being was very familiar, yes, but specific memories were beyond his grasp. Somehow he felt used, betrayed, manipulated and cast aside by this man.  
  
"You have returned to me, my friend," the Emperor continued, his smile widening.  
  
Vader brought the saber between them as a shield. "You're no friend of mine."  
  
He gave a slow laugh as if enjoying some private joke. "Oh, we were good friends once, my apprentice." His gaze moved up and down, taking in Vader. "Good stars, you look horrible. What have they done to you?"  
  
"My true friends," he retorted, "helped me shed my armor. They healed my wounds and accepted me as their own, far more than you ever did for me."  
  
"So they did heal you." A light of recognition shone in his eyes. "Medical Officer Forenze played a part, yes? It isn't uncommon for patients to form bonds with their doctors, but your friendship with her seems… something more."  
  
"That's not your concern," Vader hissed. "Yes, she healed me. Under your influence I hurt her, but she forgave me and did all she could free me from the bondage of my cybernetic components. You, however, kept me a slave to machinery for years." He assumed a defensive stance. "Did you enjoy keeping me in pain?"  
  
"You assume too much. Have you never considered that the Alliance had ulterior motives for winning your trust – specifically, gaining the services of a healthy Force-user?" Palpatine gestured toward his lightsaber. "Put it away, my apprentice. You're going to hurt someone."  
  
"I'm NOT your apprentice!" Vader shouted.  
  
Again that cold laugh. "You will be, my friend. Before long you'll be begging me to take you back under my wing."  
  
He only glowered at the monarch.  
  
"You don't remember me, do you?" His smile looked almost sympathetic now. "No, of course you don't. Otherwise you never would have left my side. You have forgotten me for a time." He beckoned for Vader to follow him. "Come with me, and we will talk."  
  
He stared, incredulous, as Palpatine turned his back on him and slowly walked away. Wasn't the Emperor going to attack him? Why did he insist on calling him "apprentice?" And what made him think he was going to abandon the Jedi cause and join him all over again?  
  
Confused, he followed the Emperor, not quite understanding what he was doing or why.  
  
--------  
  
When Luke finally found Leia, Forenze, and Chewie, they were out on one of the palace's landing platforms, firing upon a maroon-plated arrow-shaped starship. By the time he caught up with the group, it had blasted away.  
  
"Where's Han?" he asked.  
  
"Luke!" exclaimed Leia, throwing her arms around his neck. He winced as her battle-hot blaster, still clutched in one hand, pressed against his shoulder.  
  
"What the stang are you doing here?" demanded Forenze.  
  
"To help," he replied. "Where's Han?"  
  
Leia didn't answer, only buried her face in Luke's chest.  
  
"Darth Kain gave him to the bounty hunter," explained a dark man whom Luke didn't recognize. He extended a hand. "Lando Calrissian."  
  
"Luke Skywalker," he replied.  
  
"Oh, Master Luke!" exclaimed Threepio from Chewie's back. "Run! It's a trap!"  
  
"People keep telling me that," he groaned as their group charged back into the palace. "But I had to come help you. Can we go after the hunter and rescue Han?"  
  
"We'll never catch up with Aurra Sing's ship," Lando told him. "Right now, though, we need to get these three back to the Falcon and get out of here before Kain realizes they're missing."  
  
"We can't leave without Vader," Luke told him. "We should go find him before we leave."  
  
Lando's eyes widened. "Darth Vader's here?"  
  
"He's a Rebel now," Luke explained. "Long story."  
  
"I'd like to hear it sometime later," Lando replied.  
  
"Oh, it's quite the tale," Forenze said amusedly.  
  
They reached a huge white lobby, complete with a white sheet-metal sculpture in the center, which portrayed an abstract representation of a ringed planet. Stormtroopers were engaged in a miniature war with a group of miners and security guards, blaster fire peppering the air and making passage almost impossible. In the center of it all, a blue-and-white astromech unit watched the battle, fascinated.  
  
"Artoo!" Threepio shouted. "Get out of there! You're going to get yourself hurt!"  
  
The droid bleeped in return.  
  
"Oh, never mind what happened to me! Just come here!"  
  
A midnight-black form strode into the lobby, and a wave of the dark side swept across the room like a stiff breeze. The troopers and civilians ceased all movement and watched the Sith's approach.  
  
"Surround them," Kain barked.  
  
The troops obeyed, spreading out to form a circle against the walls of the lobby. Leia, Forenze, Lando, and Chewie lowered their guns warily as Kain approached. Luke slid his blaster back into its holster, drawing his lightsaber instead.  
  
"Stay back," he told the others.  
  
"Be careful," warned Leia.  
  
None of the stormtroopers seemed to notice as the Rebels and Cloud City natives joined them in their silent circle. At this point, everyone but Luke and Kain had been reduced to the role of spectator.  
  
The Sith stalked forward, his knee-length cloak billowing after him like half-furled wings. The silver slit of his visor marked the only break in the gleaming obsidian blackness of his armor. In one leather-gloved hand he held a black-hilted lightsaber, its blade a deep ruby and thrumming ominously. His gaze rested on Luke, ravenous and hating, filled with a twisted desire to tear the young Jedi apart, to crush him and wring the last of his life-force from him.  
  
/Gee, happy to see you too/ he thought, trying to shake off the flash of terror that threatened to smother him.  
  
Kain wasted no breath on a greeting. He slashed at Luke viciously, the crimson blade's progress barred by a beam of sapphire light. Luke felt the power of the strike vibrate up his arms.  
  
"The Force is strong with you, young Skywalker," Kain rasped. "But you are not yet a Jedi."  
  
He slashed at Luke's head. Luke recognized the maneuver as a feint and ducked, at the same time angling his blade to catch the second cut that sliced at his abdomen. Kain growled and thrust upward, breaking the lock of their blades and missing Luke's jaw by less than a centimeter.  
  
Again and again their blades met, sparks flying as the shafts of energy grated against each other. Luke was forced to draw on every trick and drill Yoda had taught him to keep himself in one piece. Kain fought with a relentlessness that frightened Luke, as if it were impossible for him to tire.  
  
At last Kain broke in his attack, and Luke swung furiously at his chest. But a fist in his gut caught him off guard, and he doubled over the Sith's arm.  
  
Leia cried out a warning, and he managed to pull up from that vulnerable position in time to block a strike from above. The Dark Lord batted his weapon aside with ease and stepped back, spinning his blade about smugly.  
  
/He's toying with me!/ he thought in shock.  
  
"Is that the best you can do?" taunted Kain.  
  
"You'll find I'm full of surprises," he retorted.  
  
Kain cocked his head as if smirking. "Same here."  
  
Luke brought his weapon to bear again. Kain whipped his blade forward to smash into the Jedi's sword. Rather than block the maneuver, Luke let the Sith's blade push his aside, and the momentum of the strike sent Kain staggering. Luke struck, and Kain barely managed to parry the blow.  
  
The Force tolled a warning, and he took a Force-assisted leap as flames roared where his legs had been. He landed behind the Sith and slashed at his back, but Kain dropped to the floor, taking Luke's legs out from under him with a well-placed kick.  
  
His breath fled his lungs as he landed. Gasping for air, he was vaguely aware of Kain rising, of another kick in the ribs that set off a fresh burst of agony.  
  
/Ben, help me!/ he pleaded.  
  
But Obi-wan didn't reply. His presence, once a constant companion, was gone. Luke was alone in this battle.  
  
Gathering all his strength, he raised his weapon and slashed at Kain's legs. Kain blocked the blow but missed the foot smashing into his groin. Luke took advantage of his opponent's agony to get to his feet. By the time the Sith straightened again, growling in rage, Luke had assumed a defensive stance.  
  
Kain gave a feral cry and charged. Luke raised his saber to shield himself, but Kain knocked the blade aside and brought his arm down across Luke's chest. Jagged blades protruding from his armor tore trails of fire in Luke's skin. He cried out in pain and danced away, the hanging flag of his ripped shirt exposing his bleeding chest.  
  
Kain laughed cruelly, a savage joy emanating from him at his success in wounding Luke. His arm blades retracted, and he raised his saber again in invitation, daring the Jedi to attack.  
  
/Where the stang is Father?/ Luke thought in frustration. /I need him!/  
  
--------  
  
When Palpatine finally stopped walking, he and Vader had reached the Baron Administrator's office on the top floor. The room's massive viewports offered a fantastic view of the city, chaotic though it was. The Emperor stood before the largest viewport and clasped his leprous-looking hands behind his back. Vader stepped up behind him, clutching his saber and preparing to run the dictator through.  
  
"I don't think you want to do that just yet," Palpatine advised without turning.  
  
"And why not?" demanded Vader.  
  
"Because there is still much I must tell you, my apprentice," he replied. "Once I'm finished, you'll be free to destroy me if you still wish, but I think you'll change your mind."  
  
"Nothing you have to say interests me," Vader snarled. "The thought of joining you a second time disgusts me. I'd rather die than be your stooge again."  
  
"But you don't remember your years of loyal service to me, Vader. You don't remember the power of the dark side, its glory, the freedom it offers. And you don't remember the betrayals of the Jedi… especially Obi-wan."  
  
"Obi-wan cares about me more than you ever could!"  
  
Palpatine turned to face him, his face as somber as that of a grandfather about to deliver some sage advice. "How can you be sure of that? After all, this is the same Obi-wan who concealed your identity as Luke's father."  
  
Vader only stared, caught without a retort.  
  
"Ah yes, the Jedi's ways are so bizarre," he went on, running his fingertips across the glossy chrome surface of Lando's repulsordesk. "There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no fear, no anger, no joy, no despair, and most blasphemously, no love. Only duty. Only mindless, undeterred, unquestioned loyalty toward whatever pet project the Council has pledged itself to. The negative emotions are forbidden – they only lead to the dark side. The positive emotions are forbidden – they only lead to negative emotions and, again, to the dark side. All emotion is evil because it makes Jedi think, question, and stray. And so the Jedi have erased emotion entirely from their Order."  
  
He wanted to deny that, but he couldn't. His own thoughts were coming back to haunt him.  
  
"I sense that you have issues with the Code." He smiled. "You were perhaps the smartest Jedi of all, Vader. You knew the power of releasing your emotions to become an unstoppable force. And for that the Jedi called you a traitor and sent Obi-wan to turn you back or destroy you – an action that left you crippled and dependant on a mask to survive."  
  
Unconsciously Vader raised a hand, his fingers coming to rest on the sharp jut in his mask that mimicked a cheekbone. Obi-wan was responsible for this? No, it couldn't be…  
  
…plasmatic blades clashing, searing agony, fire in his lungs, an azure saber slicing through his arm, molten lava crawling across his flesh, Obi-wan's desperate expression, Anakin's wild anguished cries…  
  
"You remember now," Palpatine noted. "Yes, you remember."  
  
Unwillingly his anger boiled, thrashing in his gut, seeking an outlet, a target. The blackness just beyond the edges of his vision stirred in lustful anticipation. He felt a dark desire to immerse himself in that demonic energy, to be bathed in it and absorb it for his own purposes…  
  
/No!/ He clamped down on the power, sealing it off. He would not, could not, use the dark side again! He would not subject himself to that all over again!  
  
"Don't be frightened, young one," Palpatine said as if addressing a child. "The power at your fingertips is nothing to fear. Revel in it. That's what you want, isn't it? To indulge in your emotion and the strength it grants?"  
  
"No," Vader grated, though deep down he wasn't so sure.  
  
"Ah, but you do." The Emperor clasped his cadaverous hands in front of him. "You do. You always have. And you came to me when the Jedi denied you the privilege of experiencing feelings. Didn't I teach you the value of trusting your heart?"  
  
"You have no heart, you corpse!" he screamed.  
  
"You do," came the reply. "Search it now. Seek the truth."  
  
Vader stepped forward, seething, intent on plunging his weapon hilt-deep through this malignant creature…  
  
…"And so, they've finally given you an assignment," Chancellor Palpatine mused. "Your patience has paid off."  
  
"Your guidance more than my patience," Anakin demurred.  
  
"You don't need guidance, Anakin," countered Palpatine, smiling benevolently. "In time you will learn to trust your feelings. Then you will be invincible."  
  
They walked slowly toward the door of Palpatine's spacious office, comfortable in each other's presences. Indeed, Anakin felt far more at ease taking advice from Palpatine than from Obi-wan. Palpatine was kind and fair, never judging him like the Jedi always seemed to, and as generous with his praise as Obi-wan was with his criticism.  
  
"I have said it many times – you are the most gifted Jedi I have ever met."  
  
"Thank you, your Excellency," he beamed.  
  
"I see you becoming the greatest of all the Jedi, Anakin," the Chancellor went on. "Even greater than Master Yoda…"  
  
He halted in mid-step, unbelieving. He could never have so blithely trusted this monster! The Emperor had to have manufactured that memory! But his instincts spoke otherwise; Palpatine might have triggered the memory, but it had always existed in his mind at some level.  
  
"Trust your feelings now, Vader," urged Palpatine. "Listen to them. Follow their guidance, whether it be to renounce them entirely and go back to mindless servitude toward the Jedi, or to embrace them and join me in comradeship.  
  
A shiver crept up Vader's spine. He never thought that, in coming to Cloud City, he'd be involved in a life-or-death duel – not a battle of swords, but of words and wills, with his soul on the line. And the worst of it was that the Emperor was right – deep down he hated the Jedi Code for forbidding love and emotion. He was trapped between conflicting desires, torn between his power of emotion and his dedication to the Order.  
  
"You know what you want," the Emperor crooned. "Come with me. Throw off the chains of the Jedi Code. Embrace the dark side. It is the only way."  
  
"Never!" he cried. "I'll never join you!"  
  
The Emperor's smile now revealed his decayed teeth. "You're bluffing, you fool."  
  
He raised a palm, and blue-white ropes of lightning poured forth and slammed into Vader, throwing him over the desk and against the wall. Agony exploded through his body, searing through his nerves, his muscles and prosthetic limbs gripped in violent spasms.  
  
/Luke!/  
  
/Father!/ came the terrified answer.  
  
But the pain overwhelmed all other thought. 


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12  
  
A wing of X-wings streaked through the skies, picking off the occasional TIE on their way to the beleaguered Cloud City. Not far behind came the warships of the Rebel Fleet, bulky silhouettes amidst the clouds. They had received the distress call, and after ascertaining that Piett wasn't a double agent, they had come to Bespin's aid as quickly as possible.  
  
"This is Wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron," Temporary Commander Antilles barked over the comm. "We're here to assist you."  
  
"Thank the Force!" exclaimed the relieved security officer on the other end. "But any way you can speed things up? Things are getting awfully hairy down here."  
  
"We're on our way," Wedge assured him. He switched comm frequencies. "Antilles to Piett, where are you?"  
  
"Ground level of the Baron Administrator's palace," came the reply. "I suggest you make haste. Kain and Skywalker are dueling, and it looks as if Skywalker is losing."  
  
Wedge forced himself to remain calm. "What of Vader?"  
  
"No sign of him."  
  
"Stay where you are," he ordered. "We'll pick you up as soon as we can."  
  
Cloud City emerged from the clouds, hauntingly beautiful but alive with activity. TIEs circled the city like carrion flies around a corpse, and the ominous shadow of a Superstardestroyer hung in the sky like a scavenger bird.  
  
"Pick your targets and go!" Wedge urged the Rogues. Under his breath he murmured, "Hold on Luke. We're coming for you."  
  
---------  
  
It was Luke's scream of pain that finally spurred Leia out of her shocked trance. She aimed her blaster and fired at Kain, fury coursing through her on seeing her friend wounded. Kain spun around and swatted the bolt aside like a child's ball, but the shot proved a distraction as Luke attacked from behind. He parried the slash, but at least Luke had the offensive now.  
  
"Shoot him or something!" Leia ordered. "Luke can't fight him alone!"  
  
"Are you crazy?!" Lando snapped. "Kain'll rip us apart!"  
  
"Oh, stuff it, Lando!" retorted Forenze. "If it wasn't for you we wouldn't be in this position in the first place! Shoot or shut up!"  
  
The four of them broke free from the circle and opened fire on the Sith. Kain responded by taking to the air, executing a back flip and landing behind Luke. Luke was now forced to shield himself from the blaster fire as well as Kain's furious attacks.  
  
Leia charged the Sith, desperate to defend Luke. She couldn't see him hurt, not after she'd lost another loved one to the Empire! Luke was too precious to her to die at Kain's hand. Footsteps and Chewie's roar told her she wasn't alone in her determination.  
  
Kain was a superb fighter, but even he couldn't fend off five simultaneous attacks and emerge completely unscathed. He parried a slash from Luke with one hand, fired a flechete blade with the other hand that struck Chewie in the thigh, and used the Force to brutally shove Lando and Forenze against a wall, where they slumped to the floor, too stunned to move. But Leia's charge brought her smashing into his abdomen, and they went down together like a toppling monolith.  
  
The next few moments seemed to happen in slow motion. Luke's saber twisted around in a blazing sapphire arc, catching Kain's flailing arm at the wrist, searing through first the gauntlet, then through flesh and tendon and bone. The crimson blade of Kain's weapon whirled away, his hand still clutching the hilt in a frenzied grip. The Sith's hoarse cry of pain tore through the air as he and Leia hit the durasteel floor.  
  
Dazed, Leia tried to get back to her feet, but a black-gloved hand clamped onto her throat.  
  
Kain's mask dominated her vision as his intact left hand tightened over her windpipe. Something blackly profane, something burning with hate and agony, cut through her mind, a probe far more evil and destructive than any she'd endured on the Death Star.  
  
/Fight it!/ something deep within her screamed.  
  
She struggled to block out the probe, focusing with all her might on the image of Luke's face, using that image as a shield against Kain's intrusion. His probe battered at her defenses, then drew back as if puzzled. Her shield had caught him off guard – why, she wasn't certain.  
  
"Let her go!" demanded Luke.  
  
His grip held firm on her throat, cutting off her breath. "And why should I?" she heard him rasp as she clawed at his hand, fighting desperately for air. "You've taken something from me. Why shouldn't I return the favor?"  
  
"Your quarrel is with me," Luke insisted.  
  
Kain snarled something unintelligible and flung Leia aside like a bag of refuse. Stars exploded before her eyes as her head struck the metal sculpture in the center of the lobby, and she blacked out.  
  
----------  
  
"LEIA!" Luke cried.  
  
But she couldn't hear him. She lay at the base of the statue, unmoving. He frantically touched her mind with the Force… and felt a wave of relief upon finding she was alive, if unconscious.  
  
Kain was on his feet now. His lightsaber flew across the lobby and into his left hand. He seethed with fury and pain, his gaze venomous even behind his chrome visor. Luke suddenly realized that he'd made a grave error in cutting off the Sith's hand. Rather than incapacitating him, he'd only enraged him, providing him with more fuel to stoke the dark side.  
  
Chewie yelped in pain as he limped forward, bowcaster ready. Blood matted the fur of his right thigh where the flechete had gashed muscle and hide open. But Wookies were a tough breed, and Chewie wasn't going to let a simple flesh wound stop him from defending Luke.  
  
"Chewie, guard Leia!" he ordered.  
  
He roared assent and hobbled to stand over her crumpled form.  
  
Lando had gotten to his feet now, and he was gazing reproachfully at the Cloud City miners and guards that stood, gaping, at the spectacle.  
  
"Well, don't just stand there!" he ordered. "Do something!"  
  
His people roared in response and began firing at the stormtroopers circling the lobby. A renewed battle began, made all the worse by Artoo fighting with every weapon at his disposal, from his shock prod to his fire extinguisher. Lando helped Forenze up, and the two of them joined the fray. Chaos broke out where there once had been terrified silence.  
  
"You think your distraction will help matters?" demanded Kain, tightening his grip on his weapon. He snarled in rage and slashed at Luke, hacking at his defenses, actually landing a grazing blow to his shoulder. He managed to block most of the strikes, though with difficulty, but he had to admit that Kain was by far the superior fighter.  
  
/How am I going to get out of this mess?/  
  
Then he felt his father's anguished cry.  
  
/Father!/ What the stang had Vader gotten himself into?  
  
------  
  
Vader had never before imagined that this level of pain could exist.  
  
Now he couldn't imagine it ending.  
  
He thrashed beneath the electrical assault, screams of agony ripping at his raw throat, every fiber of his being pleading for release from the torture. A few times he tried desperately to dredge up some kind of Force shield against the assault, but the pain ravaged his concentration each time.  
  
At last the Emperor lowered his hand, and the lightning attack fizzled out. Vader gasped for breath, too exhausted to stand, the pain slowly ebbing from his body as he lay on the floor. Smoke rose from his clothes, and his skin tingled and burned unbearably.  
  
"Had enough?" Palpatine inquired.  
  
Vader couldn't have replied if he'd wanted to.  
  
"That, my friend, was the power of the dark side," Palpatine told him, coming to stand over his prone form. "Now you see what the power of raw emotion can do."  
  
/Go away!/ he thought desperately, struggling to his hands and knees. /I don't want your corrupted promises!/ But even as the words were formed in his mind, he knew they were a lie. Deep down he truly wanted the freedom his truest feelings offered, even if it meant joining the dark side.  
  
"You know you want it." The Emperor's words washed over him, smooth as loveti-moth silk but strong enough to shake Vader's will to its foundations. "Why deny yourself the glory I offer? Join me, my apprentice, and together we can end this senseless civil war and restore order to the galaxy."  
  
"I'll never join you!" Vader hissed, keeping his gaze lowered to the office floor. He didn't dare make eye contact with this depraved beast.  
  
"You still stubbornly cling to the Jedi Order, then," Palpatine said scornfully. "Like a dog slinking back to the owner who chains and beats it. How pathetic. You truly do not remember the betrayals of the Jedi? The agony you suffered at their hands?"  
  
"I've suffered enough agony at yours," Vader snarled. He wasn't going to give the tyrant the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he'd shaken his faith.  
  
"Then a peace offering of sorts is necessary," Palpatine went on, a sadistic pleasure lacing his words. "A prize you've been seeking for the last three years."  
  
In that moment, Vader knew what rape felt like. Something decayed, something unspeakably black and blasphemous and foul invaded his mind, violating all it came in contact with. He battled the profane force with all his strength, but it casually swept him aside and delved deeper. He clenched his teeth against the searing pain, desperately trying to close his mind and shut out his foe.  
  
But the Emperor found what he was looking for – a barrier within Vader's mind. He fixed upon a flaw in that mental wall and blasted it apart with the dark side.  
  
Vader flung his head back and screamed.  
  
------  
  
The energies of the Chosen One's agonized cry echoed soundlessly in the Force, spreading like a tidal wave throughout known space, causing anyone with any Force sensitivity at all to cringe with the pain of it. Both Kain and Luke staggered under its blow, and Leia jerked out of unconsciousness for a brief moment. Beings of every species and walk of life from one spiraling arm of the galaxy to the other flinched, feeling the tremors in the Force but not comprehending their source.  
  
On Dagobah, a dwarven hermit knelt in his hut and wept.  
  
--------  
  
Kain was the first to recover from the massive quake in the Force. He struck at Luke, who, still dazed, barely blocked in time. Kain snarled his rage.  
  
Again and again Luke fended off the Sith's slashes, though his wounds throbbed and his entire body ached with exhaustion. And the Force… it still seemed to ring with the aftershocks of that hideous blow. Something terrible had happened to Vader… but what?  
  
Kain surprised him with an upward cut that knocked Luke's arm high. Then, with a vicious right-to-left slash, he took Luke's right hand off at the wrist.  
  
Luke gave an involuntary cry of anguish at the blast of fire that seared up his arm. Then the loss of his hand registered – not numbness, not pain, but simply the sensation of no longer being there – and he gagged.  
  
Kain's leg swept Luke's feet out from under him. He grimaced with the pain of the impact as his injured arm jarred against the floor. An eerie thrum and the stench of ozone kept him from attempting to rise again – Kain's saber now hung just over his throat.  
  
"Now, Skywalker," Kain sneered triumphantly, "you die."  
  
---------  
  
The agony the Emperor had unleashed upon him during the lightning attack was nothing compared to this. That had been physical pain. This was a mental and emotional anguish that threatened to consume him, body and soul, and he could do absolutely nothing to stop it.  
  
No one should be forced to relive their past in its raw, unedited, unmerciful entirety, without the buffers of time to soften the blows. It would be an experience no one would escape unscathed, and few sane. Vader couldn't fathom ever escaping this ordeal alive, let alone with his sanity intact.  
  
He collapsed to the floor, face wet with sweat and tears, blood filling his mouth from where he'd bitten through his tongue in agony. Everything was returning now. His hardscrabble childhood on Tatooine, his servitude to the Jedi Order, his fall, his brutal reign as a Sith… he remembered it all.  
  
But worst of all, he remembered the emotions behind those memories. He relived the bitter terror and rage and agony of every waking moment, the grief at watching his mother die in his arms, the hatred toward Obi-wan during their fateful duel, the horrible pain of the molten pit and the subsequent surgeries to keep his scorched body alive. Every unflinching detail of it was revealed under the Emperor's tearing, searching mind probe.  
  
Padme… blood on her face from where he had struck her in his rage… a Tusken Raider slumping lifeless to the sands… Obi-wan's empty robes collapsing under his red blade… an X-wing going down in flames… no! He tried to stem the flow of memory… an officer quailed in terror as he stepped up to take the place of his dead superior… Leia screamed in agony as a spherical torture droid hung over her… Watto swore loudly at him as he ran meekly to the lot to fetch an alluvial damper… it wouldn't stop! No! No!  
  
At last the horrible influence of the Emperor withdrew, leaving him weak and moaning in agony.  
  
"So you remember," Palpatine noted. "You have your memory back, Vader. You have what you've desired for three long years."  
  
The Emperor bent over and, with astonishing strength for one his age, hoisted Vader to his feet. Still deeply in shock, he didn't protest.  
  
"And now you remember your years of loyal service to me," Palpatine went on, a triumphant expression on his face. "Welcome home, my apprentice. It's been a long time, but you've returned to me."  
  
Vader stared at him, uncomprehending.  
  
"Well? Will you not take up the reins of the dark side once again? You have lost the way for three long years, but now that you are back on the path, it should be a simple matter to pick up where you left off."  
  
He didn't answer, too numb with the trauma of this latest ordeal. His mind was still reeling with this revelation, still struggling to sort out this flood of jumbled data that was his past. Slowly, connections were being formed.  
  
"Don't you remember where you left off?" prompted the Emperor. "The Battle of Yavin, the Death Star. Come on, it shouldn't be too hard…"  
  
The Death Star. The trench. That X-wing…  
  
Luke.  
  
As if brushed away by an invisible hand all doubts of his loyalty fled. The X-wing pilot he'd been bound by the dark side to kill had been none other than his son. His comrade, his truest friend, his flesh and blood… and his fellow Jedi.  
  
Yoda… Yoda had seen his flaws, had watched him fall to the dark side and slaughter the Order. He had nearly prevented his training several times… and yet he'd agreed to give him another chance. Despite his flaws, Yoda was a fair and compassionate teacher, and he had only pushed his students so hard because he knew what they could be if they tried.  
  
The Jedi… oh, he had betrayed and destroyed the Order, no denying that. He flinched away from those memories, not wanting to remember the pain. And he would not deny that he had issues with their laws and codes. But in the Order he had found a cause, comrades, a strength in brotherhood that didn't exist in the Sith Order.  
  
And the Emperor… the Emperor that he had so blindly served for so many years… yes, he remembered now. He remembered serving him. He remembered being his lapdog for two long decades. But most of all, he remembered the pain the monarch had inflicted upon him.  
  
The Emperor had promised power – the same promises he'd offered him here and now. He remembered his promises to restore him to health after his fateful duel with Obi-wan. And Vader had swallowed them like a fool, performing his master's bidding for twenty years, committing one atrocity after another according to the Emperor's deranged whim.  
  
Then he'd landed among the Alliance, bereft of his past and at their mercy. The Rebellion could easily have destroyed him then, and they'd had every reason to, as he'd caused direct or indirect harm to each and every one of them. Instead, they'd accepted their sworn enemy as one of their own. They'd healed his broken body and offered him a place among them. They'd given him friendship and trust, and for a few years he'd known love and honor as a Rebel.  
  
And now this putrefied hack had the audacity to assume that Vader wanted to join him again. He knew, with all his heart, that he couldn't go back, knowing what the Emperor had done to him. He'd given him his loyalty and trust, which he'd manipulated for his own base purposes. He'd believed Palpatine would heal him, but he'd kept him in pain and in the throes of the dark side. He'd wanted to abandon his Jedi past and live a new life, but his master had constantly enflamed the wounds of betrayal to keep him blinded to anything but the Emperor's will. Rather than offering him greater power, he'd fed off Vader's like a parasite. Rather than offering freedom in emotion, he'd kept him chained with his own rage and pain.  
  
He straightened as best he could, wincing at the lingering pain. "Never," he replied, his voice slurred by his bleeding tongue. "I'll never join you."  
  
The Emperor's smile faded. His eyes flashed dangerously.  
  
"Your plan backfired. In showing me my past, you solidified my loyalty to the Alliance. I am a Rebel and a Jedi, not your apprentice. I would rather die than be your pawn again."  
  
No more grandfatherly expressions – Palpatine looked exactly like the demon he was. "So be it, Jedi."  
  
A blast of lightning flung him through the window, sending him hurtling to the street below in an explosion of transparisteel.  
  
--------  
  
Palpatine stood silently a few minutes, extending the Force, waiting for Vader's life-force to snuff out when he hit the street below. But the moment never came. Either a ship or a skycar had rescued him or he'd landed on a ledge or balcony of some sort. At any rate, he was alive.  
  
He curled his lip in a snarl.  
  
/We will meet again/ he vowed. /And next time you will join me… or you will never leave my sight alive. That is a promise I WILL fulfill./  
  
The slender forms of X-wings became visible in the distance. So the Rebel Fleet had been alerted to the Empire's occupation here. Ah well. Cloud City was hardly of consequence. The Rebels could have it for all he cared.  
  
He touched Kain's mind with the Force. Better have his apprentice truss up Skywalker and get back to the Executor before some trigger-happy pilot took pot shots at them.  
  
He frowned upon encountering Kain's feral state of mind. Kain wasn't trying to capture Skywalker – he was trying to kill him! This wouldn't do!  
  
/Kain! Enough! Back to the ship at once!/  
  
He stormed out of the office, blue sparks shooting from his fingertips as his rage roiled in the dark side.  
  
---------  
  
Kain jerked as if struck by an invisible whip. The blade at Luke's throat wavered.  
  
Then it retracted with a hiss.  
  
"You will not die today," snarled Kain. "You will suffer far more before you enjoy the luxury of death."  
  
And he spun on his heel and stalked away, clutching his wounded arm.  
  
Exhausted and in agony, Luke felt his world gray out.  
  
Moments later hands were dragging him upright. He unconsciously fought their grip until Wedge's anxious voice penetrated his brain.  
  
"It's okay, Luke, it's me. What happened? You look awful."  
  
"Kain…" he moaned.  
  
"Just relax. The Fleet's here. We're taking care of this."  
  
"Leia… get Leia…"  
  
"The med squad's got her. Don't worry."  
  
"Vader…"  
  
"No sign of him yet," Drache told him.  
  
"Send search parties immediately!" he heard General Riekkan order just before he blacked out a second time. 


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The Battle of Cloud City was probably the shortest offensive in the Alliance's history. In fact, it wasn't so much a battle as it was simply nipping at the Empire's heels to force them on their way. The Imperials were already retreating; all the Rebels could do was offer a few parting shots.

Rogue Squadron did almost shoot down a shuttle taking off from the Baron Administrator's palace. But at the last minute the ship evaded and shrieked away.

Mothma's shuttle, meanwhile, touched down in the city square, and she strode toward the palace with a grim expression. She had no idea what Luke and Vader were doing here, but she had a feeling that nothing good had come of it.

Admiral Piett stepped forward and gave a respectful bow. "Madam Mothma. I remember you from your days as a Senator."

"Welcome to the Alliance, Piett," she replied. "You were a Senate guard, if I remember correctly. You had a beard then."

He smiled. "I was a bit of a rebel in my youth, no pun intended."

"Perhaps you can explain what happened here," she requested, gesturing behind her. Rebel soldiers were everywhere, treating the injured and talking to civilians who had not been able to evacuate.

"I can try," Piett replied, "but even I don't understand it all. From what I heard and saw, the Emperor and Kain had decided to set a trap to capture Skywalker, and they were using several of his friends as bait. Skywalker and Vader arrived, and when I told them about the Emperor's plot they ordered me to contact the Rebellion and went separate ways. I didn't see them again after that."

Mothma gazed skyward. "Palpatine and Kain have evacuated," she said gravely. "My guess is that they have what they came for."

Piett's eyes widened slightly.

"Madam Mothma!" Wedge shouted, running from the palace. "We found Luke! He's badly injured, though. Chewie's wounded and Princess Leia has a concussion. The Baron's taking them to the palace med center as we speak."

"Thank the Force," she replied. "What of Vader?"

"Rogue Squadron's searching the building as we speak."

"Is Luke coherent enough to tell us where he might be?" Mothma asked.

"He passed out soon after we found him," Wedge replied. "Kain roughed him up pretty badly and took his hand off before leaving him."

Piett winced. "Kain's a brutal man. Luke was lucky he didn't receive worse."

Wedge's comlink beeped. "Just a moment." He thumbed it on. "Antilles."

"We found Vader!" Zev exclaimed on the other side of the connection. "Fourteenth floor, hanging half-off a balcony. He's in really bad shape, but he's alive."

"Get him to the med center immediately!" Wedge ordered.

Mothma motioned to Piett. "Find General Madine, and he'll have you registered as a member of the Alliance. I have business to tend to, then we'll talk a little more. Any information you may have regarding the Empire will be appreciated."

"Yes, my lady." He bowed again before departing.

She strode into the palace. She would have to talk to the Baron Administrator, then a discussion with Skywalker and Vader was in order. The sooner they got to the bottom of this situation, the better.

--------

Luke clenched his teeth as he sat down in the med center's visitor's room, his fractured ribs sending tendrils of fire snaking through his torso. "Explain to me why you couldn't just graft my hand back on," he complained, holding up his uncooperative bionic prosthetic.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Skywalker, but the nerves and blood vessels were too badly damaged for a grafting operation to be successful," the doctor replied in a condescending tone, as if addressing a child. "But you'll get used to it fast enough." He offered a smile and went back into the examination room.

Chewie limped over to sit by Luke, giving a slight whimper as he favored his wounded leg.

"At least you still have all your parts in the right place," Luke groaned.

Leia was seated on his other side, looking exhausted but otherwise fine. "I'm sorry, Luke," she told him.

"What for?" he asked. "You didn't cut off my had, or slice up my chest, or burn my shoulder, or kick me in the ribs. Kain did all that."

"I'm sorry you had to suffer all this because of us," she replied, taking his flesh-and-blood hand in hers.

"Leia," he told her gently, "this wasn't your fault. You didn't know Kain had set a trap, or that he was after me. Besides, even knowing that I'd get the poodoo kicked out of me, I'd do it again for you."

She smiled briefly.

"I only wish we could've gotten Han back," he went on.

Her smile vanished, and she looked away.

"Hey now, what'd I say?" he asked. Then it occurred to him. "You think I'm jealous, don't you?"

"I don't know," she confessed. "I mean… I've always loved you, Luke… just not that way."

"I know." He rested his bionic hand atop hers. "The Rogues have seen it coming a long time. And I'm happy for you, now that something's come of it."

She smiled again, tears in her eyes.

"We'll get him back, Leia," he vowed. "There'll be a way. You'll see."

Lando entered the room. "I'm sure glad you showed up when you did. We really owe you." He extended a hand toward Leia. "On behalf of Cloud City, I thank you, and I expressly apologize for what happened to you and your friends."

She reluctantly shook his hand. "I accept your apology."

"Thank you." He turned to Luke. "Any word on Vader's condition?"

"No," Luke replied. "Forenze is with him right now."

He looked at his feet a moment before speaking again. "My only thought in this situation was to protect my people from the Empire. I'm sorry that my efforts caused the Alliance injury, but I saw no alternatives. If it's any consolation, you have the aid of Cloud City in the fight against the Empire – and my help in getting Han back from Jabba the Hutt."

"That would be most appreciated," Leia replied.

Rogue Squadron filed into the room next, plying Luke with questions and greetings.

"Where were you two?" demanded Gavin. "We were worried sick about you! We thought the Empire had captured you!"

"What happened to Vader?" Zev asked. "He was half-dead when I found him!"

"Stang, you look awful," Mela noted.

Forenze emerged from the hallway leading to the intensive care unit, mercifully cutting off any further prying.

"How is he?" Luke asked worriedly.

"Oh, Zev's exaggerating," she assured him, glaring at the young Rogue. "Yes, he was pretty beat-up, but far from half-dead. Second- and third-degree electrical burns, some laceration from going through the window, fractured ribs and pelvis from the fall… nothing needing a full-scale bacta immersion, but he's not going to be on his feet for awhile. But he's a fighter; he'll recover from his physical injuries pretty quickly if I know him."

"Physical injuries?" repeated Leia. "Do you mean to say something else happened to him?"

Forenze shrugged, an unusually concerned expression on her face. "He says he faced the Emperor. That's all I can get out of him. I dunno what that corpse did to him, but it's really shaken him. He won't talk about it – he won't say much of anything, for that matter. He does say that he would like to see Luke." She gestured toward him. "In fact, he refuses to see anyone else."

Luke carefully got to his feet, grimacing. Wedge and Janson were immediately at his side to help him, but he waved them away.

"I'm tough," he told them. "I'm a Rogue, remember?"

Weak laughter met that statement.

Forenze led him through the sterile hallway and opened the fifth door. "I'll be outside. Holler if either of you need anything." She smiled wanly. "You know, you've grown up somehow, Skywalker. I can see it in your eyes."

"Vader and I have been through a lot," Luke replied.

She nodded. "Your old master paid me a visit while Kain had me cooped up. He told me what you two were up to. Jedi Knights, eh?"

"Not yet." He stepped into the room. "I'll tell you more later."

"Okay. Right now, your friend needs you worse than I do."

The room was darkened save a lamp near the head of the bed. Monitors hummed and beeped around Vader's prone form, and a light blanket had been pulled up to his chest. Vader lay still, staring quietly at the ceiling, his hands folded over his breastbone.

"Father?" Luke sat down in the chair beside the bed, never taking his eyes off Vader. "It's me."

Vader made no move to acknowledge his presence. Up close Luke could now see the extent of the damage he'd suffered in his battle with the Emperor. He was wearing a sleeveless tunic that mostly covered his severely burned and scarred chest, but his left arm was visible, fresh cuts and burns overlaying the old scars and pale skin. His bionic right arm had been stripped of its artificial skin to make repairs to the mechanical components, and it glittered eerily in the light. Scorch marks blotched his skin and mask, and thick bandages covered the worst of his wounds. For the first time Luke saw just how broken Vader was, how much he relied on technology to survive.

/No wonder he wants to get rid of the mask so much./

"Talk to me, Father," he urged.

Vader gave a shudder, and for a moment Luke feared he was going into a convulsion. But his hands reached up and took Luke's in a desperate grip.

"Luke," he groaned, "I've been a fool."

"This isn't your fault," Luke assured him. "How could either of us ignore the Force, no matter where it lead us…"

"No, Luke," he interrupted. "Not that. I've been a great fool all my life." His grip tightened. "I should have been there for you, Luke. I should never have believed the Emperor's lies and empty promises."

"What do you mean?"

He looked away, ashamed to meet Luke's gaze. "I remember, Luke. I remember it all."

Shocked, Luke stared open-mouthed at his father. "The amnesia… it's gone?"

"The Emperor restored my memory," he replied quietly. "I think… I think he hoped to regain my loyalty."

A long silence followed that statement. Luke stared at his father's masked face, still trying to comprehend what had been done. Vader's memory had been restored… small wonder he was in such deep shock! To suddenly remember he had been a Dark Lord of the Sith and a servant of the Emperor…

"Luke, what have I done?" Vader whispered, shaking with emotion. "What have I done?"

"Father…" Luke couldn't think of anything to say. Instead of speaking he leaned over the bed and carefully embraced him, trying not to disturb his wounds. Vader clung to him as if he were a lifeline, his mask gouging painfully into Luke's shoulder as he wept with a lifetime's worth of remembered agony, his body wracked with sobs. He shared his father's pain as his father had shared his anguish at Bekme's death so long ago, held him as his father had on Dagobah yesterday… stang, had it really only been yesterday?

"It's going to be okay," he assured him. "I'm here."

"How can you stand to touch me, knowing what I've done?" moaned Vader. "I hurt innocent people, every day, without remorse. I destroyed the Jedi Order. I spent twenty-four years in the throes of the dark side. How can I ever be absolved of that?" His grip on Luke tightened. "Perhaps I should have been left to die on Yavin…"

"Don't talk like that," Luke ordered. "You're my father. I don't care what you've done – that doesn't change who you are. I'm not going to leave you. Ever."

Vader shuddered again. "Yoda was right."

"What does that mean?"

"Every time I've taken a step toward the dark side, it's been my emotions that have driven me to take that step. My passions and hatred kept me chained for over two decades… and I was too blind to see it. Perhaps the Jedi weren't so stupid after all."

Luke shook his head. "No, Father. You and I know both know it's wrong to deny someone the right to feel. So much good comes from love. I'm not going to give up the right to love my friends… or my father."

Vader released him and leaned back, looking his son in the eye. "Even if it means leaving the Order?"

He hesitated. Could he really reject the Jedi Order? But he realized that if he didn't make a stand for what he believed, nothing could be changed.

"Maybe it's not us that needs to change," he replied. "Maybe it's the Code that needs to change."

Vader stared at him. "Yoda's going to skin you alive for that comment."

"I don't care," Luke retorted. "To me it's worth it."

Vader's hand came up to brush his face. "I'm proud of you, Luke. And your mother would have been proud of you as well." A faint chuckle issued from his mask. "You have her smile."

He felt something wet slide down his cheek. "Tell me about her sometime."

"Why not now?"

"Are you sure? I mean, you've had quite a day…"

"With a broken pelvis, I'm not going anywhere for a while," Vader retorted. "Forenze will flog me if I even try to get out of this bed. Besides, I made you a promise, didn't I?"

Luke settled back in his chair. "Yeah, you did. I just wasn't expecting it all at once."

"Does that mean you've changed your mind?"

"Are you kidding? Ever since I was a little kid I've wanted to hear this."

"Some of it is rather disturbing, I'll warn you."

"But I want to hear it. I need to understand what made you do what you did."

"Very well," Vader replied, his hand closing around Luke's. "I suppose I should start at the beginning, with your grandmother… my mother…"

-------

Forenze removed her ear from the door and walked on, a smile on her face. She realized what she had done wasn't exactly ethical, but she justified it by telling herself that she had to know what had transpired between Vader and Palpatine. After all, she was responsible for his care.

So he was Luke's father. That had surprised her greatly, but now she found it oddly appropriate. Those two were alike in so many ways.

For a moment she wondered if she should tell Mothma of Luke and Vader's blood relation – or of Vader regaining his memory. But she dismissed the thought. They deserved some confidentiality. And she had kept plenty of secrets for her patients before.

/Let it stay quiet for now/ she decided. /The gundark'll be out of the bag soon enough./

-------

The officer who'd replaced Piett was to be pitied – his career as Admiral lasted a scant two hours. Darth Kain was in such a rage from his physical pain and failure to destroy Skywalker that he killed five officers and reduced two medical droids and three cybernetic hands to scrap before his fury ebbed.

Then he went and knelt before the Emperor, outwardly submissive but seething indignantly within.

"You disappointed me, Kain," Palpatine said sternly. "You had strict orders to capture Skywalker, not to kill him."

"I'm deeply sorry, Master," he replied without meaning anything of the sort.

"You don't lie well, Kain," Palpatine retorted. "You intended to kill Skywalker. You aren't repentant in the least."

"The rule is always two, Master," Kain countered. "Not three, not four, two. We don't need to recruit the Skywalkers. We need to destroy them!"

"It is not your place to say whether or not the Skywalkers join us, Kain," snarled the Emperor. "The decision is mine alone. You will carry out my orders without exercising judgments of your own."

Kain ground his teeth and clenched his cybernetic right hand. The limb was nowhere near as adequate as a bionic prosthetic. It was heavy and clumsy – and it hurt. The rods and wires buried in his flesh seared constantly. Was this his punishment for disobeying his master?

He focused on the pain, absorbing it, feeding off it to fuel the dark side.

/I will kill you yet, Luke Skywalker/ he vowed. /And not even the Emperor can stop me./

"It is most interesting, however, that you reported Princess Leia to be strong in the Force," Palpatine went on. "Are you sure your feelings are clear on the matter?"

"They are clear, my master."

"How interesting," he noted. "How very interesting." 


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

"A second Death Star?" repeated Leia in disbelief.

"That is what our Bothan Spynet tells us," Mothma replied evenly. "The Empire has begun shipping massive amounts of supplies and personnel to the Sanctuary Moon of Endor, among them a powerful turbolaser. This turbolaser is nearly identical to the one used in the first Death Star. From these facts – as well as the holos provided by Borsk Fey'la – we can only reach one conlusion – a second Death Star."

It had been three weeks since the Battle of Cloud City, and the Alliance still hadn't established a new base. Until a permanent home for the Alliance headquarters could be found, this cruiser, affectionately dubbed "Home," would have to do. Many of the Rebel leaders were gathered here in the Home's conference room – including Princess Leia and both Rogue Squadron Commanders. A massive viewport admitted the light from a nearby white dwarf, the elderly remains of a star.

"Commander Vader, what do you know of this?" inquired Mothma.

Vader studied the holo of the half-constructed space station. It had been with great reluctance that he had confessed to the Alliance that he was no longer amnesiac, that he had regained the memories of his service to the Empire. He had feared that the Rebellion would consider him dangerous and turn him away.

But Mothma, ever a compassionate and understanding leader, had been surprisingly accepting of that revelation and even saw it as an asset. The information Vader could provide on the inner workings of the Empire – even if it was outdated by three years – could prove invaluable. And though it had damaged Vader's reputation in the eyes of some, the Alliance as a whole still considered him an ally.

"When the first Death Star was built," Vader said at last, "it was regarded as an invincible superweapon. The concept that it could be destroyed was so unthinkable that no plans were made to provide a backup." He snorted. "I never really approved of that technological terror."

"Obviously they've learned their lesson this time around," General Madine put in. "Probably slapped an extra shield over that thermal exhaust port."

"All the more reason to try and destroy it now, before it is completed," Ackbar replied.

"We will need more information before we can organize an attack," Mothma stated. "We have the Bothans keeping an eye on the Sanctuary Moon and Admiral Piett's aid in calculating the movements of the Imperial Fleet. Once we have enough data, we can prepare for battle. Organa, Skywalker, and Vader, can we count on your cooperation once you've returned from Tatooine?"

"Yes, my lady," Luke replied.

"Very well. Good luck in rescuing your friend. May the Force be with you."

Luke and Vader left the conference room together, the latter still limping slightly. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

"Are you sure about this?" Luke said at last.

"If I weren't sure, would I have volunteered?" Vader countered.

"It's just that… well… I know a lot happened to you on Tatooine. You have a lot of memories there."

"That is true. But Han is my friend. I have to help rescue him, even if it means doing what I swore I'd never do – going back to my homeworld."

They reached the hangar, where three ships were being prepped for departure. The first, the Millennium Falcon, would carry Lando and Forenze to Tatooine, where they were planning to integrate themselves among Jabba's entourage as employees. The second, an aged gunmetal-gray Delta starfighter, would serve as Leia's ship as she established herself as an Ubese bounty hunter, quite in contrast with her true persona but the better to find her way in Jabba's employ. The third, the Desert Angel, would take Vader on his own mission, which he still hadn't fully explained to Luke or anyone else. Only Mothma knew the full details, if not the entire reason.

"I wish you'd stop being so secretive," Luke complained.

"If I told you, you'd try to keep me from going," Vader replied cryptically.

"That bad, huh?"

"I have debts of my own to pay, Luke. But I'll be there when you need me. Trust me."

Luke sighed. "I wish I could go with you."

"And I wish you could come." He squeezed Luke's arm affectionately. "We'll send someone for you and Chewie when the time's right."

They stared at each other a long while, gently smiling. Vader couldn't help feeling a rush of pride at seeing his son – Padme's gift – standing before him, a fine young man and a fledgling Jedi. He had his father's strength, his mother's heart… and his own indomitable spirit and optimism that nothing, not even the brutality of the Sith, could destroy.

Someday, he thought, the Alliance would need to know. Someday, they would have to tell about their family bond.

But not now.

"Well," Luke said at last, "take care of yourself, you old Sith you. Forenze isn't going to be around to put you back together again."

Vader laughed. "May the Force be with you, Luke."

"May the Force be with you."

Vader boarded the Desert Angel. "Ready to go, Midnight?"

His new astromech, a jet-black R2 with a distinctly feminine personality, whistled cheerily.

"Let's go, then."

He powered the engines, and the Angel roared out of the hangar.

/Goodbye, son, until we meet again./

Credits:

Only two new names in this one, which I will handle in order of appearance. Ridge is actually becoming a common name where I live, and Devarra is a derivation of Dev Sibwarra from the Star Wars novel "Truce at Bakura" (it's been years since I've read it, so I apologize if the name is inaccurate). Drache is a German word meaning both "dragon" and "kite."

A few readers on have asked some interesting questions, which I'll answer for them if they're still reading this story.

No, I did not get inspiration for this story from "Knights of the Old Republic." I've never played the game and don't plan to, and I actually had the idea for the story before the game came out – though the story sat on the back burner a long time while I finished "Centaur of Attention" and the two "Eye of the Storm" stories.

No, these stories are not named after Robert Frost's "Songs of Innocence" and "Songs of Experience," though I do enjoy the classic poets, especially Frost and Blake. The names come from album titles put out by my favorite music group InsideOut, an a cappella band (they may have gotten their inspiration from Frost, I dunno). I'm not going to continue this practice for the third installment, however, since the band's other album titles – "Reverence," "So It Seems," "Plugged In," and "Primary Colors" – don't fit the story.

Stay tuned for the final installment of the "Reborn" trilogy, "Recompense." 


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